The Oblivious Bride – She Looks Awful in Yellow

3 Written by jenny on June 1, 2010 – 9:00 am

I’ve now entered the tedious phase of wedding planning.  With our venue selected, I am now going through the process of calling and interviewing caterers.  It’s a tiresome and humbling experience where some caterers will just come out and say, “You can’t afford me.”  Hopefully my next update on this topic will be more exciting.

To break this monotony we decided to focus on more fun things!  Like our wedding colors! Not having any clue on what I wanted for our colors, I started looking online and through bridal magazines to get color ideas.  I then realized it was easier for me to decide which colors I did NOT want.

Although I am Chinese-Canadian-American, I knew I wouldn’t want red to be my wedding color.  Red is a very symbolic color in the Chinese culture, symbolizing love, joy and prosperity.  It is often the color of the wedding invitations, the traditional reception dress – the qi pao, and wedding gifts are usually given inside red envelopes.  However, red has always been a very bold color for me.  And, it is kind of silly, but I went to Cal.  I will always associate red with our rival school – Stanford.

I also decided to throw out bold and dark colors in general.  Dark blues, purples, and other colors that you’d often find in my wardrobe were out.  While I do like these colors, I figure we are having a springtime wedding and our venue would be both partly outdoors.  I wanted a color that could match the surroundings.

By figuring out what I don’t want, I realized what I do want.  I wanted to stick with a “happy” color – something bright that signifies spring.  After digging around some more, it hit me!  Yellow!  Yellow is exactly how I want the wedding to feel.  I could even imagine some decorations using lemons and how nice it would play off the green hills behind our wedding venue.

Photo Courtesy of André Karwath via Wikimedia Commons

But then I thought of something else…  I look hideous in yellow!  I have a dark complexion with yellow undertones.  I think yellow looks ghastly on me!  Yes, I would probably be wearing a white dress, but I couldn’t imagine forcing my sister (who has the same complexion) and other bridesmaids from wearing a bright yellow dress either!  Did that mean, back to the drawing board?

Complement This, Please!

Still liking the idea of yellow, I decided to find a good complementary color that would work well with yellow.  I luckily found the solution in the Northern California publication of The Knot magazine.  In an article about color pairing, they suggested matching yellow with slate gray.  Now gray might seem like a drab color for a wedding, but I was sold on the pairing after finding these beautiful photos from photographer Stephanie Williams:  http://stephaniewilliamsphotography.com/blog/tag/yellow-and-gray-wedding/

Stephanie was able to capture the color pairing amazingly well.  The yellow bouquets popped against the gray bridesmaid dresses and I loved the yellow flowers in the silver gray tins.  While Stephanie is a bit out of my price range (and based in Southern California), I know what I’m going to look for in a photographer.

P.S. Special bonus with this color pairing – now my bridesmaids can find gray dresses that are completely re-wearable!

Next Week:  My Ladies in Gray