Before I proposed to J, I had never thought about wedding colors. At first, I thought they were some kind of wedding industry invention that only applied to ballroom weddings. In the end, I changed my mind. It was so much easier ordering tablecloths, paper, craft supplies, etc. if there were specific colors. If I could order tissue paper in 50 colors, but having two specific ones made my life easier. Also I am terrible at visualizing colors together. I didn’t want to accidentally end up with a vomit arrangement of colors.
Once we decided on a carnival theme, the color choices were narrowed down. I saw two color boards and emailed them to J. One of them was aqua, red, and white and the other was turquoise, red and white. We ended up choosing turquoise.
Turquoise has caused a number of issues. First people have different ideas of what the color looks like. I cannot pick turquoise out of a teal, aqua line-up so if I am going craft shopping I bring the vellum envelope from the Save the Dates as a reference.
The other problem has been that some items are really hard to find in turquoise. For example, this week I wanted to order card stock. The red was easy to find, but I could only find turquoise card stock at one site on the whole internet and it was almost 5x as much as the red card stock! Also the turquoise tissue paper I ordered is definitely blue (you will see this in the pom pom post). I have decided it doesn’t matter. I will try my color-picking best, but really no one is going to care if the pom poms are aqua, the napkins are teal, and the drink flags are turquoise.
Ironically, I read in Martha Stewart Weddings that turquoise is pantone color for 2010. MS then showed all of her previous ideas using turquoise and red (way to make me feel original). However if turquoise is the color of the year, why is it so hard to find?
Im having the same problem! (went with turquoise and yellow) Turquoise paper sold out… nothing seems to match quite right… I have this little bucket for flowers that is the “right” color that I take to the craft stores with me! I figure as long as the colors aren’t right up against each other, no one will notice. Is someone really going to hold my invitation up to the flower containers and say: “this doesn’t match!”?? No. But that won’t keep me from obsessing over it! But, thanks for the pantone#, I can double check my turquoise!
I love the picture sample you have! Alex and I seriously need one of those–I swear there are cultural differences in shades of color. And don’t worry, you are original–cause 1) you’re you & J and 2) you’re having a circus themed wedding = rad.
I feel ya. I picked cornflower blue as one of my colors, but consistently say cornflower/periwinkle blue, trying to cut down on the amount of confusion. I picked out paint chips to give to the wedding party for when they choose their attire, but I’m beginning to think I should just carry them with me all the time.
Also, doesn’t it drive you crazy how things *seem* one color on the monitor and then turn out to be completely different in real life?
My partner and I have solved this dilemma by picking brown and “late summer colors” as out color theme. The intention is that they don’t have to match! But you would be surprised how many shades of brown there are!!
is the color you seek cerulean? Your Save The Dates kind of looked a little cerulean to me. I find that as a color it is often less mistaken or confused than turqoise, aqua or teal.
Since I wrote this post, I recieved the turquoise cardstock, which turned out to be blue. I went a little crazy. I had thought I was over caring about colors, but I wasn’t. I have noticed that companies seem to use turquoise and teal interchangably so I walked down to Office Depot to check out the ‘terrestrial teal’ cardstock. It is almost exactly the same as the Save the Date color. I thought about sending back the cardstock and using the teal. However at this point everything I order online is more aqua than turquoise. The only turquoise I have that is more green is the leftover vellum and I like blue more than green anyway. So I decided that the drink flags will be aqua. I will keep ordering turquoise and end up with an aqua/red/white wedding, which I am happy about.
@Kelly – I am glad someone feels my turquoise pain. No one will bring our invitations and no one will care about colors, but still it is hard to let go for some reason. If I find anything really turquoise, I will post my source to help my wedding-color people out.
@Erica – I made the color sample in word. All I did was make three boxes and then I went on wikepedia to see that the sRGB numbers were for the colors. If you fill in the box in word using more color options it lets you type in the sRGB numbers so you get the exact shade. Then I wrote on top in a pretty font. I think companies don’t bother checking their colors before naming their products. There should be some kind of universal naming system with offical color checkers.
@Alyia – It does drive me crazy. Everytime I order something turquoise online it always shows up blue! Also I love cornflower/periwinkle. I am excited to see your wedding parties outfits.
@Liz – I am surprised by how many shades of everything there is out there! What are late summer colors? Kind of like fall colors?
@Derek – I ordered the vellum for the save the dates in turquoise, which is why I assumed that is what color turquoise is. I think you are correct though in that it isn’t turquoise. I don’t know if it is cerulean, but when I compare it to the color boxes I made it is even a little more green than the teal.
When we first got engaged, I blurted out, I’m not doing colors, don’t make me pick colors. And, Ginger was like, we will do non colors, black and white, simple. It was one of the few wedding planning areas that just felt plain not fun to me. I have gone back and forth since then with different color schemes, but I keep coming back to simple black and white. Little did I know there are still plenty of choices to make, different white china patterns, different shades of black….
Our colors are turquoise and ivory. Having the same problems and it just gives me a headache. I have decided that shades of aqua are close enough and have just rolled with it. My reception location will have romantic soft lighting to “hide” the fact that I am using different shades of turquoise…at least I hope it will.
I think most places label aqua as turquoise anyway for some reason.