How to Select Winter Wedding Colors

With a "Winter Wonderland" as the backdrop to your wedding ceremony, your guests will long remember your winter nuptials. You can incorporate the colors of nature and the season into your plans for your winter wedding. Choose colors that bring out the best of the season to create a successful winter color scheme for your celebration of marriage.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Find Color Inspiration

1. Use your ceremony site as a jumping-off point when planning your winter wedding color scheme. Since winter climates typically require indoor ceremonies for the comfort of guests and the bride and groom, your ceremony and reception venue don't have to reflect the cold weather outside.

2. Think warm when you select colors for your winter wedding. Warm colors include reds, oranges and yellows, but they can also include dark purples and grays with reddish hues.

3. Make metal a part of your color scheme. Gold, brass, copper and bronze offer a rich contrast to a warm color palette and provide a formal note that is particularly effective for evening ceremonies.

4. Use cooler colors, such as navy blues or forest greens, to contrast your primary wedding color. Especially when used with a dark crimson red or bronze-like orange, these cool colors retain the richness required in a winter color scheme.

5. Embrace the formality of your winter wedding ceremony when finalizing the colors you select. A casual afternoon wedding needn't be a dark affair, especially when you select lighter values of warm colors, such as dark pinks, violets and golden yellows.

Implement Your Color Scheme

6. Use seasonal foliage to decorate your ceremony site or reception hall. The red berries of holly, contrasting with its deep-green crenellated leaves, can add contrast to traditional-floral bouquets that are arranged in your wedding colors.

7. Keep wedding accessories, such as cocktail napkins and table linens, coordinated in your secondary wedding colors. You can use different values of these colors to create contrast within your table settings.

8. Use gold and bronze metal accents in flower arrangements and place settings to create drama at your reception. The warm glow of candlelight reflecting off carefully chosen napkin rings or table accessories will lend sophistication to your event.

9. Incorporate your color scheme into the lighting for your event. Using a colored spotlight and monogram "gobo" or stencil, you can personalize your dance floor with colors from your wedding palette.

Tips & Warnings

• Build a notebook of color ideas as you plan your winter wedding. Possible sources of inspiration might include wedding and home-decorating magazines.