Category: Tips, Tricks, Ideas

{ Design Roundup } 5 sites to help you choose a wedding color scheme

Posted on by Emee Pumarega
orange peach and yellow flowers
Chuttersnap on Unsplash

You’re engaged, you’ve got the venue and the date, and are so excited to get going on planning! Yet, you’re stuck on what the wedding will actually look like. Envisioning the final event means you need to pick invitations, table linens, flowers, lighting, and all the assorted goodies that go with your big party. And of course you’ve got to start with a color or two (or a few!) that hopefully go together.

“But I like everything!” you say. Or maybe, “Our site has this weird carpet and I’m not sure what goes with it.” Or possibly, “I don’t want my wedding to look too matchy-matchy.” How do you decide on a color palette that, while not as lasting as a bedroom paint job, is still super-important and something you’ll remember for years to come? Here are five tools and websites I like to use when I help clients formulate their color ideas.

1. Adobe Color Extract From Image – Adobe Inc.’s Color tool makes it possible for you to take a photo of your site (or any photo, for that matter) and extrapolate a color scheme from it. Click on “Create” > “From an Image” and upload your photo and wow! You can also select different moods for the same picture. A great tool if you are feeling a bit stumped. You do need to create an account if you want to save your palettes.

2. ColourLOVERS A bit broader in scope, ColourLOVERS covers not just weddings, but other design solutions such as graphic, print, and web; interior design; and fine art. Users are encouraged to get social by creating accounts, uploading patterns, and sharing with the community.

3. Design Seeds This blogger takes hundreds of artful photos and applies her own aesthetic to draw out each custom color palette. A wonderful inspiration site on their blog and Instagram.

4. The Perfect Palette This blog updates several times a week with wedding color inspiration. You can search the whole site by color family to find exactly what you want.

5. You knew I would mention Pinterest. If you’re following my boards already, you know how addicted I am and how you can be sure to see a 2am pin from me on your dashboard now and then. If you haven’t had the pleasure of using this site, it is a sort of visual Twitter where you can “pin” just about any image on the Web to a virtual bulletin board, keeping all of your ideas in one place. You can create as many boards as you like and name them anything, from “Color Inspiration” to “Cute Pictures of Pugs“. All boards are public, so you can search the site for your desired color scheme or idea and re-pin other folks’ images to your boards. All of the above tools can be used in some way along with Pinterest.

Are there any other great color tools you’re using to design your wedding? Please share with me in the comments as well.

Are you killing off your wedding vision before it even happens?

Posted on by Emee Pumarega

Couple-planning-wedding-vision

Image: Bufferchuck on Flickr.

"We really want an open bar, but we probably can't afford it."

"I love the idea of live music, but it probably won't work in our venue."

"We really pictured guests walking with us from ceremony to reception, but it seems like logistically it would be too hard."

The above statements are just a few I've heard this week from my couples just starting their planning. Notice anything? They are self-editing before they've even begun planning. They are killing off their wedding vision even before it has had a chance to stretch out and take its first breath.

It's sad to me when I see couples assuming that they can't have what they want, that it will be too hard, that they should just settle for the venue or setup that will be easy, so they can stop worrying. Later they'll look back and wish they had just held out for those few things they really wanted that would make the day special and worthwhile to them. In addition, those special touches (which might seem a lot of work at the time) will be their first statement as a married couple.

So, don't self-edit. Don't give up. If you have an amazing idea, get it down on paper. Pin it on Pinterest. Talk to a wedding professional who may have seen something just like it before and can help you get there. Do something — just don't let it die before you give it a chance to be part of your wedding day.

Make it a White Friday instead, and set your wedding planning intentions

Posted on by Emee Pumarega

Black-friday-shopping-wedding
Photo by tshein on flickr, used with Creative Commons License.

Wait! Before you make one more Black Friday purchase, stop for a minute! If you’re recently engaged and hoping to have your wedding in 2012, why not take a little time this holiday weekend to set your intentions around what’s really important for your celebration? A little pre-planning before the plunge of wedding shopping can go a long way.

1. Have your families met yet? Ideally, your families will meet before the wedding day. Figure out a way to make this happen if it hasn’t already.

2. Have you set your budget yet? There are many budget planning tools online, or you can email me with the subject line “I read your 11/25 blog” and I’ll send you the one I use for my full-service clients — free!

3. Have you started on your guest list? Your budget will give you an idea of how many guests you can have. It’s not a perfect rule of thumb, but just to get you started, consider on the casual end (in the Portland, Oregon area), a budget of $50-100 per person; then, a more elaborate celebration will have a budget from $100-500 per person. Reducing your guest list is the easiest way to reduce your budget.

(Of course, all you really need is your intended and the witnesses, but these guidelines should work for anyone hoping to host a celebration with more than a dinner-party number of guests and some kind of food, drink, and entertainment.)

Another way to think about budget is to consider a favorite restaurant whose food you would love to have at your wedding. What did you pay per person the last time you went there on a date and had appetizers, dinner, and a few drinks? Take that number and double it (in order to budget 50% on catering and 50% on the other things like planning, venue rental, entertainment, documentation, printing, etc) and that can be a rough budget for you.

4. Have you discussed your shared vision with your fiance(e)? On The 2000 Dollar Wedding Blog, Sara Cotner discusses how she and her fiance “started with the end in mind”. No matter what your wedding budget might be, this is great advice.

So take a few moments during this holiday weekend to be thankful for this exciting time, and to set your intentions and get your wedding planning started right. Who knows–maybe eliminating one Black Friday impulse purchase will allow you to get something you really hoped for for the wedding.

A version of this article originally ran on The Portland Wedding Coordinator on November 27, 2009.

{ Be a Better Event Planner } Handling client email

Posted on by Emee Pumarega

Wrapping up a recent corporate event, I noticed that there were 258 emails in the folder I had set aside for this client. I’m sure there will be a few more when you take into account post-event recaps and invoices. Even with the low, conservative estimate of five minutes spent working on each emailed request or action item, that’s almost 21 hours of event planning work based on emails alone. In reality it’s probably far more.

As an event planner, are you accounting for the work you do over email when you are estimating the job for the client and planning out your workflow? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks to Ramberg Media Images for the graphic.

Debugging your wedding (Keeping insects away from the ceremony and reception)

Posted on by Emee Pumarega

This cool Portland summer has been lovely, but in some places, the dampness has led to an excess of bugs. Bug-off spray is a must at outdoor weddings, but here are a few  tips to make you the perfect wedding host:

– Avoid DEET-based sprays that can irritate skin. Lemongrass and geranium oil-based repellents are available and they smell much nicer.

– Transfer the insect repellent spray into nicer glass bottles before setting them out at your event. Empty glass spray bottles can usually be found in the bulk beauty aisle (lotions and soaps) of natural grocery stores such as Whole Foods and New Seasons. Wrap the bottle in a ribbon to match your scheme, and then it will be guest-book-table worthy.

(Vintage atomizers could be fun too!)

image from Polyvore

– Burning lemongrass torches or candles can keep bugs down in the immediate vicinity. Having gently-blowing oscillating fans can also help.

– If the area seems to be uncontrollably buggy, consider applying non-toxic lawn or yard insect treatments (some examples here and here) several hours or days prior to the wedding (get the permission of the venue owner first).

{ Sanity Saver } Don’t have the rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding.

Posted on by Emee Pumarega

It's Friday night, and we are preparing for Becca and Ryan's wedding day tomorrow! They, on the other hand, are relaxing leisurely at their hotel the night before the wedding. How are they so un-stressed? One reason: they held their rehearsal dinner last night, rather than tonight.

The major advantage to this: giving yourself a free day the day before the wedding, rather than piling one big event after another. The major con? Not all of your wedding party may be able to take off work and make it into town a day early.

However, if your wedding party and family are flexible, you may love the idea of having your rehearsal dinner two days before, and making your "wedding-day-eve" a lot less hectic.