Choosing colors for your summer wedding in Chicago and Theme
Sunflowers seem to be a big theme for summer weddings.
By far the hardest part of planning our wedding so far (after finding a reception hall) has been trying to find a theme or color combination for the wedding. There are a million options and for some reason we didn’t have any characteristics that were meaningful in colors or wedding themes. In fact we are in our mid-late thirties so getting married at this point is really less about themes and more about simply getting married and being happy.
I found the whole wedding planning process to be kind of odd when it’s centered around a theme. Some people we have heard bout go with themes from movies or TV shows they like (The Office, Star Wars) others go with a theme that is important to them (mostly the bride) like Vineyard weddings or Disney Magic Weddings.
What is even more complicated is how the seasons work into planning wedding colors and flowers. Red is apparently for winter, along with dark purple plum colors, browns and silver light blue combinations. White is an anytime color but awfully boring with a white
Red is more for winter but this combination with aqua is new
room, white dress, white tablecloths and white flowers. Pinks, yellows and pastels are spring wedding colorswhich is fairly predictable as long as it doesn’t end up looking like a baby shower or your family Easter dinner.
We also found that we were somewhat limited in wedding theme colors by what colors you can get in flowers, tablecloths and bridesmaids dresses. The flower part was the most difficult. You can get flowers in reds, oranges, yellows, greens, pinks, whites, cream, lavender, brown and some blue-ish purples. That may sound like a full color spectrum but it means that if you like teal or grey dresses you may have to pick a complimenting color for your wedding flowers rather than a coordinating matching color. (like yellow or white)
Plus we found that if you go to local mainstream florist chain stores you will be limited to the colors of flowers you can get and the styles of arrangements and bouquets they sell. We went to 2 Phillip’s Florists in Chicagoland (Naperville and Downers Grove) and while both designers were nice and tried to be helpful, there wasn’t anything really impressive there in their books. It was very basic and very plain designs that you have seen at another million weddings. If you want something standard chosen from a book and not really unique they can do that on a small budget. They quoted us $1,200 and $1,500 for all the flowers for the wedding. I thought that was a very affordable and reasonable price but I still was looking for something unique and I could not design it myself.
Purple Vanda Orchids
having any suggestions from the florists that seemed better, I turned to the internet to do more research.
I found a lot of small blogs and florist sitesthat had great pictures to look at when you are looking for colors and designs. A lot of people also put together inspiration boards to coordinate their planning thoughts. An inspiration board is just a collage online of the images you have right clicked and saved on your computer that you like.
After surfing google images, flickr, blogs and the knot for about 2 weeks I found a few pictures I
liked. (there is a lot of fugly stuff out there too) We tried a third florist in River Forest, IL called Tulipia. Ashley was great in looking through the photos and telling us his honest professional opinion about the colors and what was available in July that we could work with. We ended up with lavender and violet/purple/plumof all colors. (with black callas and purple vanda orchids) I love it though.
Some plum and violet colors used in Weddings
It is different than what I have seen before and I think Tulipia floral designs has a modern edge to their designs that will make the arrangements fabulous. Plus I can’t go with the standard clear glass square or cylinder vases because they look cheap and just like everyone else’s. I am thinking that footed urns and bowls in black would be better because it will set off the lavender well. The white tablecloths and lavender table runners and napkins should also look ok with that. I will try and get something plum for the wedding favors and some plum ribbon to work into bows on the favors, bouquets and dresses. It seems to all be coming together finally. What a relief.