Summer weddings are another popular choice, and it’s no wonder why. The weather is warmer — it will almost always be warm enough out that the wedding party needn’t worry about getting cold. The ceremony can be held outdoors with less chance of rain, and it also stays light longer, allowing the celebration to continue long into the night.

Summer is also a great season to find inspiration for your wedding colors all around you. And you can ground those vibrant colors in white ceramic vases or oxidized glass cylinder vases. Here are a few of the ways you can find the perfect wedding color combinations for summer.

Drawing Inspiration From Nature

Summer provides us with an all-natural, vivid color palette to draw inspiration from. No matter where you look in the summer, you’re met with color. A few specific elements that can motivate you might include:

1. Summer Flowers

Just as spring brings with it a host of gorgeous blooms to enjoy, so does summer. If you’re not familiar with some of the brilliant summer flowers out there, use this quick list as a place to get started with your search.

• Zinnia
• Sunflower
• Lavender
• Delphinium
• Marigold
• Dahlia
• Calla Lily

There are many more flowers we could mention, so just use this list as a jumping-off point and consider all the different ways you could combine these blossoms together. You could even pair some of these blooms with dessert-inspired plants, like red, green, and pink succulents.

Why not mix the brilliant orange of a marigold with the vibrant blue of a delphinium, and use yellow, orange and blue as your colors for a summer wedding? Or pair succulents with magenta zinnias?

2. Trees

Summer is the season when the trees are in full bloom. Consider the bright green of many deciduous trees during this season, or the deeper forest-green of evergreens. Don’t forget to also consider the dark maroon of trees like the Japanese maple. If you truly want to be creative, you can add these rich leaves into your bouquet, combining a color like bright blue or yellow with the deep green of summer foliage.

3. Fruits

You’d be hard-pressed in the summer to go a full day without encountering the many brightly colored fruits that make such tasty treats this time of year.

Think about the bright colors of strawberries, watermelon, kiwi, peaches, grapes, and bananas. Can you find any inspiration here to incorporate into your summer wedding color palette? Why not draw on the natural shades found in peaches and plums for a mix of warm pink and a darker purple color?

Think Jewel Tones

A common theme you will see popping up in many summer weddings is the frequent use of bright jewel tones. While not everyone follows this pattern, it’s worth considering if these tones and hues speak to you. A few of the common bright colors you might encounter in your search for summer wedding color palette ideas are:

• Ruby Red
• Warm Blue or Deep Blue
• Forest Green
• Deep Blue Purple
• Sunshine Yellow
• Marigold Orange

Mix and Match Your Jewel Tones

Just as color theory and color wheels show us different ways of arranging spring colors, it can also give us insight into the different ways we might combine and arrange summer colors for a wedding. Let’s break down these color theories using summer tones for inspiration.

1. Complementary

If you’re looking to create a summer wedding design that maximizes contrast and excitement, consider choosing complementary colors that sit on opposite sides of the color wheel. One such example would be bright green and deep pink. This is a color combination that will be immediately striking and eye-catching.

2. Monochromatic

Monochromatic color schemes are ones which use only one color but make use of multiple different shades of that single color. For example, you might choose to use only pink, broken into three different shades of increasing or decreasing saturation. Bouquets such as our pink rose bouquet are an excellent example of a monochromatic color scheme — it pulls in colors from light peach-pink to plum-pink petals.

3. Analogous

This method of creating color schemes depends on the color wheel being broken into 12 even slices. To create an analogous scheme, you would choose three colors that all rest directly next to one another. One analogous summer wedding color scheme that might look lovely could use striking blues, indigos, and violets.

Introduction: How to Pick My Wedding Colors Chapter 3: How to Choose Color Palettes for Spring