True Colors

Well, I bet ya'll can guess what comes next, even if you hadn't read the title.  We picked a theme, we decided on the "atmosphere," so clearly there was only one more element to nail down before we set off buying things- colors!

As a pre-engaged lunatic girl, I had already considered colors for my one-day wedding.  Mr. Potion and I had even discussed color palettes before getting engaged, and we'd settled on royal blue and clover green:

colors via Pantone

You may recall that my weird little brainstorming session included a portion on colors.  If we'd gone with the colors we determined represented our personalities, our color palette might've looked something likes this:

colors via Pantone

 Hmm.  That has the potential to be a nice color palette, but it needs a little tweaking.  The major problem here is that blue and orange are together- two colors that should never, ever go together.  Ever.  I don't care what shades.  And I'm not just saying that because I'm a Hokie and also an Alabama fan.  (Okay maybe I am.)

Paint is clearly my greatest medium

 At this point we did what any other couple would do when faced with such a dilemma: we turned to the interwebs.  I typed the words "color palette" into an image search, hoping to get a picture of a color wheel or something, and instead, I found this picture:

Photo originally found at Simple Chemistry, then printed, crumpled a bit, and scanned back into my computer :)

 (Unfortunately, since then, the website hosting the image has taken it down, but thankfully I printed it out to carry around, which means I could scan it in for the 'bee!!)

We both thought it was perfect.  These colors just feel like fall, whereas the combinations I mentioned previously feel more summery.  (I guess it helps that they're presented as leaves!)  Saying these colors out loud (red, orange, purple, green, grey) sounds awkward; you wouldn't assume these colors would go together.  But these shades together really do make the perfect fall color palette.  Armed with a print out of this photo, we headed to the paint department at Lowes to pick up some swatches, and settled on these:

Olympic Antique Moss, Valspar Waverly Home Classics Purple Potion and Tomato Red, Valspar Laura Ashley Home Pumpkin 6

 We decided the purple and red would be the main colors, showing up in bridesmaids' dresses and bow ties for the groom and his men, while the green and orange would be supporting colors, showing up in boutonnieres and corsages for the mothers, and greys and silvers would appear as accents, in suits for the boys and shoes for the girls.

How did you choose your color palette?  What do you think of ours?