How did you decide?

TheSparrow · July 2010

I'm just starting the planning process & I've been thinking quite a bit about what colors & styles to use for the wedding & reception. I have several ideas & am working on coming up with a few more (with Ben's help).

My question is, how did you decide which colors or style to use for your reception? Was it something that matched the location? Or was it based on a very clear theme? Did you choose something that very clearly expressed you as a couple, or something that would be fun & memorable, even if it wasn't something particularly significant?

And if you feel like elaborating, what were your original ideas & how did you narrow it down to that one final idea?

anne.azano · July 2010

My wedding is at the beach and I like blue! Plus, my FI has blue eyes and they look gorgeous when he wears blue... he'll be wearing black, but oh well! I never really considered any other color, so there was nothing to narrow down. So, I went with blue and white with a bit of pale yellow in the flowers. No real theme besides the beach. we're having flip flops, our invitations have shells on them. Stuff like that.

danieliza1127 · July 2010

I pretty much always imagined myself in a flowy goddess-y type dress, rather than a ballroom poofy type dress. So I basically started there. When we were shopping for, and found, my dress I wanted to find BM dresses that went with the style. We found them at David's Bridal and so I chose from the colors that particular dress came in. The one I liked the best was the red one, so red it was. The only thing my H (then FI) requested was no pink, so the rest was up to me. So we went with red and black, with ivory and silver accents. My dress was ivory.

From there, I just kind of branched out. Looked at TONS of pictures here on the Knot and every where I could find. Met with our venue to see what they could offer as far as centerpieces.

I found these tall black eiffel tower vases here on the Knot that another bride was selling, and so I bought those and we used those on half the tables with floral centerpieces and the other half of the tables we used the venue's centerpieces of hurricane vases with candles. I added red rose petals on all the tables to bring in some more color.

The rest was just gathering ideas and deciding what we liked. I didn't want to spend a ton on flowers, so we just stuck with roses. My H doesn't really care for cake, so we did cheesecakes instead.

Pics in married bio.

fallbride1109 · July 2010

I had a vision in my head of a very traditional elegant wedding--I knew I wanted black tuxedos and all white flowers and maybe black dresses for the girls, although I saw gold in there somehow too. When we picked our venue, the linens were gold damask--almost the color of champagne. So that made me think of a champagne theme--I picked champagne colored dresses for the girls and carried the champagne theme in our napkins and favors.

So it started with a general vision and just grew from there.

Jelenny · July 2010

well....i was kinda set on black dresses for the bridal party - just my personal preference and it took some talking to the fi...

i explained that i wanted to have fun with color and for me personally it seemed easier with a black "backdrop" to have color pops...

we basically went to lowes and got paint chips of colors we liked and played around with them...created some combos kept some nixed others....my only request was not to have "fallish" colored wedding - i wanted bold colors.

we ended up with orange and fuschia - i think our venue has rich tones like royal red, gree, royal blue in the carpet (who is really going to see that with dimmed lights??) and the walls are more neutral - they dimmed the lights when we looked at the venue and honestly...it won't clash they have tray recessed lighting so i can have fun with colors...

just go for what you want...

dittmerbullard2010 · July 2010

We are having a country/barn wedding. We went with colors that go with that. Blue denim and red, mostly. White in the flowers. We wanted something more relaxed and a little different than your average wedding.

TheSparrow · July 2010

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_reception-ideas_did-decide?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:5Discussion:acef547b-e05f-42b5-acbb-e18360c9daf6Post:17c00079-3e2e-4e84-a2ff-b97062381333">Re: How did you decide?</a>:
[QUOTE] just go for what you want...
Posted by Jelenny[/QUOTE]

That's what I'm trying to figure out, what I want! I'm a scenic designer & am very interested in a lot of different styles because of what I've been exposed to through my research & projects as well as my own explorations into things.

My big ideas so far are a darker red & a rich gold, with a lot of fabrics & a very lush sort of feel. My big style inspirations for this are the Indian & Persian cultures. The second is cool colors, shades of blues & purples, with accents of bright yellow, which would be a more breezy, light thing, & my first choice if I decide to do an outdoor wedding. And finally, green & something that would be really whimsical & dreamy.

And I'm talking to Ben about other ideas, too, because I really want him to be involved in deciding the overall style & theme of our wedding.

trix1223 · July 2010

I loved (and still love) the colors yellow and peach. My DH didn't really care either way, but he liiked the color brown. Perfect: he wore brown, the font on our invites was brown, and we were happy.

My DIL is a pink girl through and through. My son knows that, and knew she'd be happy with a pink wedding, so that's what theyhad. He wore a classic black tux and was happy.

My DD has always loved the color purple, so she initially chose purple and ivory and her DH wanted to wear a grey tux. A bit later in the process she added a honeydew melon green as an accent color which was gorgeous.

So in all cases, it was a favorite color that our DH's were okay with as well.

fallbride1109 · July 2010

Inspiration boards can be really helpful.

ehathewa · July 2010

We went with colors that both went with the venue and the season. The room for the reception has red/orange/gold carpeting and dark red chairs. The wedding is in the fall... so we just went with that.

RochelleAnn2302 · July 2010

My suggestion would be to pick a venue and work with what you have not against it. If you have a barn or beach as your venue I would say stay away from the lush fabrics, or if you have a a country club wedding go for something that has a more formal tone to it. The colors can really be worked from there but again, burgandy on the beach seems as out of place as yellow at Christmas time. Once you have some other details lined up it will seem more obvious I think. Then just go with what you love!

aerinpegadrak · July 2010

Even before we were talking about our own wedding, DH brought up the idea of having the bridesmaids in black and the groomsmen in white. I loved it, so when it came time for our own plans, I never considered another combination. We both knew that we wanted something elegant that felt upscale (even though we couldn't spend that much) but still fun, so that informed all of our decisions.

We just wanted a wedding that reflected "us," really.

TheSparrow · July 2010

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_reception-ideas_did-decide?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:5Discussion:acef547b-e05f-42b5-acbb-e18360c9daf6Post:4884ef05-fb98-42e9-bb88-130724ef483e">Re: How did you decide?</a>:
[QUOTE]My suggestion would be to pick a venue and work with what you have not against it. If you have a barn or beach as your venue I would say stay away from the lush fabrics, or if you have a a country club wedding go for something that has a more formal tone to it. The colors can really be worked from there but again, burgandy on the beach seems as out of place as yellow at Christmas time. Once you have some other details lined up it will seem more obvious I think. Then just go with what you love!
Posted by RochelleAnn2302[/QUOTE]

See, location is a part of the problem. We're kinda working back-a**wards because Ben is in the Army & won't be getting his orders until February. We're going to put together a list of locations that we like & see what is available once we are able to give them a date.

So I don't really want to base it too strongly on location because I don't want to have to change it all as soon as we book a place that wasn't the one the color theme I had matched, if that makes sense. I feel like for our situation it may be a bit easier to use a pre-set color idea to help choose locations. Also, I'm going to try to make sure whatever I end up with is done/planned in such a way that it can be modified slightly if needed without re-doing the entire thing.

Oh, another thing, we aren't 100% sure yet if he'll be in uniform. And even then, we aren't sure which uniform he'll have at that point because the Army recently changed their Class A uniform.

So many factors.... lol :)

aerinpegadrak · July 2010

Part of why we went with black and white is because it worked with any conceivable venue. I'd seen a lot of pictures of the suite we ended up using, but we didn't see it in person until the day before the wedding.

gottahavashorti · July 2010

For the reception, I told DH to choose the linen colors from the caterer's swatches because I liked lots of colors. I think I helped narrow it down a little and he decided he liked aqua and lilac, but didn't want half the tables to be aqua and the other half lilac because it might be too girly for him. So he settled on aqua outside for the guest tables and lilac inside for the food and cake tables. The centerpieces were chosen based on their edibility and drinkability rather than matching colors.

laurenbergher · July 2010

My favorite color is yellow, and his is red, so we put them together! It seemed straight forward enough. Sit down together and toss out ideas. Write everything down. The perfect ideas will just come out, and you'll know it when you see it. Another idea: one color in many, many different shades.

pnutkitten · July 2010

One of my close friends had just started looking at dresses for her bridesmaids, and when I was helping her I fell in love with the color Marine from David's Bridal (a brighter navy). A few months later I got engaged, and knew that was going to be one of my colors. The rest of them came from looking at favors for weddings - I found "fairy tale" favors that had frog princes - and I really liked how the pink and the light green complimented each other - so I put those with the Marine and I had my colors. Then, I set my "theme" around that.

RebeccaB88 · July 2010

I started with my favorite colors, and went from there. I knew they'd work at the church, and am making them work for the reception. FI is colorblind, so he really didn't care which way we went, lol.

MeaghanandMichael · July 2010

I knew I wanted a fall wedding my whole life. Then we got engaged at our venue and everything fell into place from there. For me, the first place is finding a venue that means something to you (rather then a random hall) and building your wedding around a place you want to have your day. The colors in my wedding (plum, green and brown) came from all the flora and fauna in the area and the name of my venue, The Beach Plum Inn.

My dress was meant to fit into a preppy and classic New England beach setting rather than a ball room and my flowers echoed exactly what was found on the grounds of my wedding. Let all the elements of what you want your day to be ebb and flow around each other so they work seemlessly rather than forced stylization into a random setting.

brooke876 · July 2010

My fiancee and I chose royal blue and white with silver accents because both of our favorite colors are blue and looking at color themes online I loved the blue ones the most. I would suggest going with what colors go well with the season your wedding is in as well as a color you love or color combo you love.

One thing is make sure that if you're getting bridesmaids dresses at a bridal store it's a lot easier if you pick a color that is commonly used in weddings (there's a lot of choices still) because otherwise you may have trouble finding lots of stuff that matches that color for your reception hall. Good luck!

twilight.rose · July 2010

Since I was little, I'd always pictured my wedding as white and aqua with black accents, so that's what we went with!

Norms Angel Forever · July 2010

PINK. PINK, PINK lol i've always been a pink girl, i'm no princess but i love pink!!! i love pink so much my crinoline under my dress is pink b/c i couldn't get my dream dress IN pink lol
i always knew pink would be a key element, so with white and black as majority colours and pink as my accent it just makes my pink peices pop

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