Wedding Themes and Colours: Inspiration and Budget Ideas
Your wedding is your big day, and one of the ways in which you make it yours is with your wedding theme. Your theme tells your guests what you’re all about: whether you’re glam or more relaxed, for example!
The best wedding theme is one that matches your personality. The ceremony could be formal, and the reception a black-tie event. Or you could have a beach wedding, or a themed wedding (like a fairy tale!) In terms of colour, modern weddings are more diverse, and you can pick any complementary colour pair you like. The choice is yours.
But your wedding theme isn’t just about the big day itself. It’s also about all the little things, like your invites and other stationery. Fortunately, at Bride and Groom Direct, we’ve got you covered we have stationery in any colour and to suit any theme, all at the perfect price for you.
Wedding Theme Ideas
To be clear, your wedding theme should be whatever you want it to be. It’s one of the things that can be yours, on a day that’s often all about worrying and planning.
Here’s our list of basic wedding themes. You’re free to pick one of these or not. You could plan a Martian wedding if you want… These ideas are just to get you started!
Glam Wedding Theme
Glamourous, elegant weddings have been popular forever. A wedding is a special day, and while having a unique theme is a lovely idea, some people want to celebrate their big occasion in style. Hallmarks of a glamorous wedding are:
- A formal location for both the ceremony and the reception
- Classic colours like white and black
- Classic wedding wear, and a black-tie reception
- Classic fresh flowers
- Lots and lots of guests
As you can imagine, glam weddings can easily become quite expensive. Of course, that’s the case for any wedding, but with a formal reception and lots of guests, and in a fancy venue to boot, the costs do add up.
One place you can make some savings is with your stationery. For a proper formal wedding you would normally send both a save-the-date and a high-class invite. If you organised these through a wedding planner, they would cost a lot. But you could always save money by heading online if you want glam, you could try our custom top-pocket Sparkle wedding day invites.
Beach Wedding
If you’re not a formal person, a beach wedding is the perfect wedding theme. You keep things light and informal, with a minimum of stress. Plus, your wedding venue can double as your honeymoon spot. It’s a real win-win situation.
Again, a beach wedding can cost a lot of money. Unless you’re fortunate enough to already live on a pristine Caribbean island, you’ll have to pay to get there—and you may have to pay for some or all of the guests, too. On top of that, you still have to pay for the ceremony and reception, which can be expensive if you’re heading to a recognised wedding hotspot.
For a beach wedding, we recommend a folded invite, e.g. a gatefold invite. These are sent in an envelope like any invite, but the card of the invite itself is folded too. This means the person you’re inviting has to open up the invite to see what’s inside. This is perfect for surprising people with your beach wedding!
Winter Wedding
Having a winter wedding is a fantastic idea. First of all, you’ll be avoiding peak wedding season, which is spring through autumn. This will save you money across the board from the venue to the catering. So, if you’re budget-conscious, you could actually use that to your advantage.
In terms of the theme itself, a winter wedding is perfect when you want classy style. White is the perfect colour: it’s elegant, it’s probably the least expensive, there’s surprising variety (think ivory and cream) and it fits perfectly with a winter theme too.
You can reflect all this in your choice of invites. Plain white invites are cheap and cheerful, but still look fantastic. Something cool and icy blue would fit the bill, too.
If you wanted to go all-in with the winter theme, we even offer invitation bundles dedicated just to that. Our Snowfall wedding day invitation bundle features a number of delicate snowflakes on the right with your ceremony wording on the right. A matching reply and information card sit neatly on top, all held together with a bellyband.
Casual Wedding Theme
Last but not least, you could go for a casual wedding theme. This applies to everything! So, for example:
- You could arrive at your wedding in whatever car you like—nothing fancy.
- You could wear trainers instead of high-heels.
- You could have a cheesecake instead of a wedding cake (provided that you like cheesecake). Or you could have brownies. Or you could have whatever you like, or no cake!
- You could keep the menu simple, e.g. pizza and pasta. Everyone loves pizza.
The point is that a casual wedding is relaxed. There don’t have to be rules. Or, you can have just one or two classic wedding design elements, like you have a fancy dress, but you don’t have a ‘proper’ wedding cake.
This extends to your invites, too. You could skip the formalities (Mr. and Mrs. Smith request the pleasure of your company…) and put whatever you want. Bride & Groom Direct allow you to reinvent your wedding invite template with any wording you like.
Then, you have to think about the design of your invite. Since you’ve picked a casual theme, a budget invite would probably do—you can spend the money on something more important, like the dress or tux you’ve had your eye on. All of our designs can be fully personalised, too—you don’t have to pay extra for the privilege.
Fairy-tale Style
Last but not least, why not consider a fairy-tale style wedding? Everyone dreams, growing up, of having a gigantic wedding fit for a princess. If you can—provided you can afford it without taking out too many loans—why not do it?
The central part of a fairy-tale wedding is a big, big dress. With a plain dress, a fairy-tale wedding just isn’t a fairy-tale wedding. You need something big and sparkly, preferably white, but a princess can wear any colour she likes.
As for everything else, that should be big and sparkly too. You’ll need a big, grand venue, preferably a church, but a stately home wouldn’t be remiss either.
You can extend this theme to your invites, too. Our Luxury Ribbons wedding day invites definitely tick the ‘elegant’ box, and the big, bright ribbon right in the middle give that sparkle factor too.
Wedding Colour Scheme Ideas
Once you’ve picked your theme, you can pick your colour scheme. The colour scheme normally stems from the theme itself: so, a formal wedding will have formal colours with lots of white and black. A beach wedding might have a colour scheme with lots of yellow (sunshine!)
But the colour scheme should also represent how you feel about your wedding, and what you want it to say about yourself. So, what you should you go for? Here are just a few ideas.
Muted Yellow and Grey
Yellow and grey has been big in interior design for a while now. What you might not appreciate is that it’s actually a lovely wedding colour scheme!
The grey gives a lovely formal look as a baseline colour, but without being boring white You can pick a grey that fits your taste, although yellow is usually paired with a mid-grey.
Yellow, on the other hand, brings the happiness. Yellow is the colour of sunshine and long summer days, and that’s the feeling it brings to a wedding or reception venue. It’s an easy way to lift everybody’s spirits. And better yet, when it’s paired with grey, it really pops—both in terms of hue and in feeling.
This is such a fantastic colour scheme because it’s interesting without being too adventurous. Grey is muted, but it’s definitely more interesting than boring white. And yellow is a fantastic break from pastel colours, which will always be popular, but can get samey.
Royal Blue and Yellow
Wedding colour schemes tend to be flat and pastel in look—but if you want something brash and bold, then pick a scheme like royal blue and yellow.
Royal blue is a fantastic colour if you want your wedding to stand out. It’s a deep, bright colour that adds a touch of class to proceedings, but without being boring. It definitely pops more than a light pastel blue.
At the same time, yellow is bright and summery. Like we said above, it’s a happy colour, which is exactly what you want. It’s also the perfect colour to offer that kind of complement to a deeper shade of blue like royal blue. So, while the blue brings class and depth of feeling, the yellow reminds you that a wedding day should be a happy day!
Emerald, Cream and Gold
Alternatively, you might want a more refined, more elegant look for your wedding. Modern colour schemes are all about reflecting personality, and while that’s an excellent development, you might want a classic colour scheme. If that’s the case then look no further than emerald, cream and gold.
Cream and gold combined offer luxury; they offer high-class refinement that’s perfect for a wedding day. Cream is easy to find, and there are lots of ways you can use gold to add class: from the table decorations like napkins and runners, to the cake!
If none of these colour schemes speak to you, don’t worry. You don’t have to pick something just because it’s popular, or because a friend did it, or because you saw it in a magazine. Your wedding can have any colour scheme that you want, provided that you can find décor in the right colour for a reasonable price.
Which Theme Should I Pick for My Wedding?
The choice is entirely yours. Maybe you’ve had a favourite colour for as long as you can remember. If that’s the case, then just go with that!
But if you haven’t, and you’re struggling to pick a theme that you think is appropriate, then we recommend asking yourself a number of questions. These questions will help you make a shortlist of the kinds of themes and colours you could pick. Once you’ve narrowed it down, you can decide in whatever way you like—by flipping a coin, even. Consider:
- Where did you and your betrothed first meet?
- What do you and your betrothed do? Have their families focused on a profession through the generations?
- Do either of you have a favourite sports team, whose colours you could use for your colour scheme?
- Where are you holding your ceremony? What colour or theme would fit with it?
- Is there anything you can think of that symbolises your relationship? If so, what colour or theme does it fit with?
- Have you already got décor or belongings that will feature during the ceremony or reception? If so, what theme could you make out of them?
- What kind of wedding did your parents have?
Talk with your partner and try to answer these questions. They may help you identify a particularly meaningful colour (or pair of colours) you could use as the base of your design—or even a whole theme, like something rustic or nautical.
And whatever colours or themes you pick, be sure to check Bride & Groom Direct for your décor, invites and more. We have everything you could possibly need, and in all kinds of colours, too. So take a look today!