Color Schemes

Let me just say, color schemes are a major pain in the ass! I had all these modern, trendy ideas for color schemes, and then Ben fell in love with the terracotta room at Turf Valley, and now our reception is going to be held in this peachy-golden ballroom that is just completely saturated in warm colors, warm lighting... it's absolutely STEEPED in warmth. Sounds cozy, and it is, but try decorating it! You can't do a nice clean, fresh color scheme like light green and white, because it isn't a fresh, clean setting. You need a blank canvas for that. You can't do bright colors, because the room itself is already so committed to its tone that anything that doesn't fall within the existing color family will look ridiculous. And pale or pastel colors would just wash right into the background - the lighting just doesn't leave room for them. Which basically leaves me with deep, rich colors that accent the existing palette. Like burgundy. Which is about the only thing I can think of that works, so here we are. As for an accent color, I'm stuck between yellow and green. For either color, it will be very muted (not bright) but not pale. I'm planning on yellow at the moment. It seems to blend into that room best. I'm hoping it doesn't end up with a McDonald's, ketchup and mustard look :) I'm just going to have to stick with true burgundy and not venture too far toward the red side!

And for those of you who will be receiving a save-the-date in the not-too-distant future, don't expect it to be burgundy or yellow. It isn't. We don't exactly subscribe to the whole matchy-stationery thing. No one has been to our wedding yet, so they don't know that the STDs don't match the color scheme (unless of course they read my blog... oops). I did want my stationery to give people a feel for the overall tone that we're going for - the whole elegant-casual thing - and I think they accomplish that perfectly. Which is why we love them :)

In essentially unrelated news, I'm taking Ben out for a surprise tonight for his birthday (which is on Labor Day). I can't risk him finding out early, so I won't reveal it now. I will say, however, that I'm more than a little irritated at the rain! I'm also throwing a party for him on Saturday evening which should be a good time :) Anyway, more about how all that goes in a later post. For now, I finally have a 20-minute break in this protocol so I can go eat some lunch!