Will your summer wedding mimic ocean colors, and feature blues, greens, and whites? Will your winter wedding combine silver and ice blue? Perhaps your autumn wedding will blend plum, orange, and olive green, or your spring wedding will use three different shades of purple.

What do all four of these color schemes have in common?

They’re all equally right.

Perhaps the biggest and most important lesson you can learn about wedding color schemes is that there is no right or wrong choice. Some people find this idea freeing. It means they can choose whatever they want, without having to fear “being wrong.”

For others, this idea is intimidating and even a little scary. If you have all the options in the world, how do you narrow it down?

It’s simple. You choose something you like. No matter how many rules or guidelines you read, ultimately, the choice comes down to you and your spouse and what the two of you think is pretty to look at. If you like it, then it is right for you.

What If I’m Not Good at Picking Colors?

For those of you who love crafting, have a natural artistic flair, and enjoy decorating a room and designing outfits, you may find it easy to decide on your wedding color scheme. You may enjoy discussing it with family and friends, and you may love spending hours debating the merits of plum versus royal purple.

If you’re the type of person who gets intimidated by this prospect, we hope that this guide can provide some useful tips to help get you started. We can’t pick your colors for you, but we can share some of the common conventions with you and help you find the supplies you need to make your creative visions come to life.

One last tip for the bride or wedding planner in you: Don’t feel restricted by color conventions. Are you getting married in the fall, but you love pastels? Go ahead and create a pastel palette. This is your wedding, and you should feel free to make it the wedding of your dreams.

In sharing this guide with you, our hope is not that you will feel restricted by color theory and traditional color schemes. Our hope is for you to draw inspiration from these conventions and use them as a starting point to discover your own unique and perfect wedding color palette.