Designing a wedding is no small feat. Every single detail of a wedding contributes to the overall look and feel of the day. Details like the choice of font for the stationery, height of the florals and texture of the linens are all important pieces of a puzzle. Together the pieces create the overall picture of the wedding day you’re designing. If you’d like to become a Wedding Designer, or would like to offer design as part of your wedding planning services, you might like to consider joining us in Wedding Planner School.  But even without doing that, you’re in the right place. In this article I’m going to share with you the two things that every good Wedding Designer knows how to do – two things that will help you in your journey to become a Wedding Designer.

Be a Wedding Design Detective

For me, designing a couple’s day starts with being curious about them. To create a wedding day that is unique to them, you need to learn more about:

• their vision and priorities for the day
• their personal style
• their story

Simply letting the couple talk to you about their day is a great place to start. But to really hone in on aesthetic that will best suit them I do the following:

• Ask them to complete my Wedding Vision Workbook. Completing this will help them to define their shared vision for the day. It also makes it clear to you what matters the most to them and the things that are less important.
• Have them create a Pinterest Board with images that reflect their vision for the day.
• Walk them through a series of questions (included in my design questionnaire). This helps me to further understand how they envision the day looking and feeling.
• Use all of the information I’ve gathered to create a Mood Board. The Mood Board is a visual interpretation of the information and inspiration they’ve shared with me.

But equally as important as this ‘detective work’, is approaching design with the knowledge that details matter. Even the smallest of detail contributes to the bigger picture. And of all the details to be considered, it’s the colour palette that is perhaps the most defining. The colour palette is the detail that will be carried through all of the design decisions. Once the colour palette has been selected, telling the couple’s story, reflecting their personality in the design and making decisions about florals, linens, etc, is significantly easier.

Be a Colour Excavator

A colour palette is a combination of colours used by designers in their designs – wedding designers, interior designers, graphic designers and more. When it comes to weddings, the colour palette works like an anchor for the wedding, helping to ensure the decor, florals, and other details are cohesive. 

But with so many colours and colour combinations to choose from, how do you help a couple choose their colour palette?

Some couples will know exactly what colour palette they want. But more often than not they don’t have a preference or they have just one or two colours they like. And here is where your curiosity as a Wedding Designer will be useful again.

If your couple are stuck when it comes to colours, ask questions like the ones below:

• Do you have a favourite colour or combination of colours?
• What colours do you gravitate towards when buying clothes?
• What colours have you used to decorate your home?
• Have you been to any weddings where you felt strongly about the colours – either in a positive or negative way?
• Are there colours you simply do not like?
• When you think about the season your wedding is being held in, what colours come to mind?
• When you think about your wedding venue, what colours come to mind.

Images are another way to help a couple define their colour palette – Pinterest is such a great tool for this. The Pinterest board they created may provide a clue to what colours they gravitate towards. You may notice a dominant colour/colour theme in their board which will help you choose a palette for them.

And keep this in mind; the Mood Board you create for them, should reflect the colour scheme. This will help them to feel comfortable about the palette before any design decisions are made.

A Quick Guide to Creating a Colour Palette as a Wedding Designer

Once you’ve reviewed the couple’s answers to your ‘colour palette’ questions and their Pinterst Board, it’s time to create their colour palette.

Colour theory is a whole area of study in itself but you can create a well balanced colour palette simply by following this golden rule:

One to three primary or neutral colors are a good base for any colour palette, with no more than one or two accent colours. 

Tip #1:  Any more than five colours in a palette is too many and can have the opposite effect of helping you to create a cohesive wedding design.

Tip #2:  An accent colour can be a metallic or finish – for example, wood or cement.

To inspire you to create amazing colour palettes we’ve created this Pinterest Board. Why not start your own! This is a great way to train your designer’s eye when it comes to what colours work well together and what combinations are perhaps not so good. And you can share your board with couples who are struggling with colour choice – they might just find their palette amongst the ones you’ve saved.

Becoming a Wedding Designer

Becoming a Wedding Designer is not as simple as gathering inspiration, conducting research or identifying a colour palette, although each of these activities is where designing a wedding starts. And we can help you too. In Module 7 of the Simple Framework for Planning Weddings (which we share within Wedding Planner School) we’re teaching you how to offer Wedding Design alongside your Wedding Planning services.