Understanding Color - As in Color Theory, That Is...

One day, one hundred people, one thousand decisions ...where do you start? How about color?

Color effects us in ways such as persuasion, arousal, inspiration, challenge, danger, repulsion, etc... It's why you buy things and why you don't. It's where you go and where you believe you're not allowed to go. It's one of the first things we discover as babies.

When it comes time to start picking and mixing and matching colors for your wedding, don't consider yourself an expert in the area unless A) You are a formally-trained artist with years of experience or B) You have an innate, almost in-born, ability to select the proper paring of colors when called upon. Many people people make the mistake of thinking themselves one of those two when, in fact, they have very little ability to even match their daily work outfit!

An understanding of color can be enhanced by understanding its relationships to one another via a colorwheel. Colorwheels are a design basic and display the basic set of colors that we all know by name. Primary colors are listed as Red, Yellow and Blue. Between them sit the secondary hues of Orange, Violet and Green. A mixing of the Primary (or First) and Secondary (or Second) colors provides us with the final level known as Tertiary (or Third) Colors. To find a compliment to a color, you simple find the color opposite the one you are looking at. Now you know you can safely choose a color and its compliment without having them clash with one another.

COLOR WHEEL SAMPLE
	Primary Linked Colors       Secondary Linked Colors       Tertiary Linked Colors     Complimentary Color Examples (Always directly across your selected color)         Red / Green     Red-Orange / Blue-Green     Orange / Blue     Yellow-Orange / Blue-Violet     Yellow / Violet     Yellow-Green / Red-Violet
Remember: Black is a technically not a color, as it is devoid of any light. Hence its opposite remains White (all colors together shown with full light)

Over the centuries, an understanding has developed about color coordination and the human brain. The eyes and the brain work together to process the underlying 'feel' of a certain color or tonage ( if that's even a word!). This is the process that tells you what color generates a warm, hot or cold (cool) feeling in your mind. Someone can look at a color and tell you that they like it or not like yet they might not be able to articulate to you as to why they feel about a certain color like they do. Understanding the fundamental idea behind color is the first step in choosing the right mix, or complimentary, colors for your wedding's accent.

It is common knowledge that certain colors generate immediate reactions - red (used in stop signs or stoplights instantly hail an innate command in you to STOP!). Red is a very noticeable color, naturally reserved with love, blood or temptation in our society. Selecting red for anything but the flowers in your wedding could take some very much appreciated notice away from you. Why make your bridesmaids more noticeable than yourself on YOUR special day?

Colors like greens and blues facilitate what is referred to as 'cool' colors in the color spectrum. These colors provide the viewer with a sense of soothing that they can't explain, but can confirm that their brains really appreciate it.

Your understanding of color will be a giant step in you nailing down wedding day specifics. Understanding why black is reserved for funerals and not weddings will keep you from making some pretty awful mistakes when planning out the most important day of your life. One possibility is to leave the solid colors like black and gray to your man and his groomsmen and balance them out by selecting something more eye catching but not too overwhelming for your girls. Naturally you'll be wearing the white, but the proper selection of color for your bridesmaids and flowers will help in solidifying your place as the center of all attention on that day. Everything around you should work with you and not against you! Know your colors!

Incidentally, the accent color picker in our Wedding Dress Creator program (found here) utilizes a wide spectrum of accepted and popular color swatches for weddings (shown below for your convenience).

The following is a listing of those colors with their appropriate color swatch for reference. Start thinking about what color you like and then be able to tell yourself (and others) why you like it. If it's a theme you're going for, try to choose colors that work well together. What type of colors will you see in your church that day? What works well with a beachfront setting? Is a wedding ceremony at a water park really what I want? Think of everything when deciding on the accent color and you get a better, more broad, picture of what look your girls should be going for.

Some things to think about when choosing your color(s):

• Wedding Ceremony Venue (Church - it might be of modern or traditional design/age; Beachfront setting; Garden/outdoors, etc...)
• Bridesmaid hair color (compliment the dark with a dark color, light hair with a light color)
• Bridesmaid skin tones (pale skin on dark can be distracting, and there's always that one really tan girl in there - sometimes called "the carrot")
• Flower types/colors available for the time of year of your wedding
• Weather to consider for the time of year (Snow in winter, leaves in Fall, etc...)

Think color! color! color!

Color Swatches for Possible Wedding Accent Colors
	White		Lipstick		Black		Sky Blue
	Light Ivory		Hot Pink		Gold		Periwinkle
	Champagne		Dark Navy		Rose		Regal Blue
	Latte		Kiwi		Lilac		Sapphire
	Mocha		Olive		Dusty Lavender		Copper
	Chocolate		Sage		Plumb		Burndt Orange
	Buttercup		Hunter		Eggplant		Cinnamon
	Maise		Emerald		Amethyst		Apricot
	Baby Pink		Chianti		Aqua		Coral
	Primerose		Burgundy		Blue Topaz		Silver
	Ice Pink		Claret		Light Blue		Dove Grey
	Fuschia		Red		Dusty Blue		Royal

If, based on the swatch grid above and the color wheel shown higher up on the page, then we could afford to make the following color swatch combinations:

Red			Emerald
Maise			Plumb
Royal			Gold
Aqua			Cinnamon
White			Black
Sage			Burndt Orange
Mocha			Kiwi