color story: summer brights + maybe DIY?

While cruising though our photo archive, hunting for bright color story, I rediscovered Amanda and Alec’s cute-as-ever images from their wedding at Kruger’s. What struck me for this post, was not only how lovely the flowers were, but also that it might be possible for a crafty gal or guy to tackle something similar as a do-it-yourself project. Of course, that would come with a warning that you’d have to be insanely organized or a masochist to want to, but hey, you could.

I think the key to why these flowers are so lovely is that they don’t try too hard to be anything but simple. There’s nothing exotic or overly-constructed. Every flower pictured here is readily available in the Portland area in the summer, and based on the look, it wouldn’t matter if you had a particular bloom. For example, if you had more dahlias and fewer gerberas, it wouldn’t change to the whole look. The key, in my opinion, is keeping the color scheme tight–stick to a relatively narrow range of colors adjacent to each other on the color wheel.

I can see this working with a range of rosy colors, say soft pink through magenta and purple. Or white through cream all the way to pale yellow. Choosing your scheme this way insures that no matter what blossoms come your way at wedding time, you can surely find a pretty assortment without having to pay extra for a particular shade or shape.

One more plus: it’s easy to pick an accent color when your color scheme is analogous–for example here, Amanda used burgundy and yellow ribbons to tie her personal flowers, but nearly any soft color could have worked. Think about how well a soft, grayish blue would look with cream and white, or also be a great companion to a pinky purple scheme.

Brave? Try it.