Avocados and Hardware Stores

As most of you probably know, I love colors. I love wearing colors, being surrounded by colors, eating foods of many colors, the list goes on. So, it is no surprise that I started thinking about colors for my wedding as soon as I was engaged. Granted, this was long before I knew the big event's place or time of day. I did, however, show great self-restraint by waiting until my wedding venue, date, and time were squared away before making any official color decisions.

For me, picking colors is about visualizing them. When I wanted to paint a room yellow and green, I found a perfectly ripe avocado, cut it in half and took a picture before going to the paint store. I probably would have taken the avocado to the store with me to compare colors, but it would have been too messy. Though, a little strange perhaps, I believe my method was successful. The colors of the room are as creamy, smooth and inviting as I wanted them to be.

When thinking about colors for my wedding, I wanted an equally visual way of selecting not only colors, but tones and depth. So back to Home Depot I went. Leah (also known as Jack) came too, to look at colors for her wedding! You might laugh and ask how hard can it be to pick out a dark red, but there I was with five or six different dark reds trying to figure out which one was best.

Since getting engaged in September, I've know a couple key things about the wedding I was about to plan- It would be in the fall, it would be outside, and the colors would be earthy. Many of you know my love for blues and greens, but for this I really wanted warmer, natural tones. From the start I was thinking autumnal reds and oranges, but it wasn't until I was standing in Home Depot that the specifics really started to come together. Some colors were easy to find. I picked up a creamy yellow and deep chocolate brown almost right away. Others like the red and orange took a while. I wanted the colors to be rich, but not to bright. They were for bridesmaids dresses after all, and who would want to wear a bright orange dress?

After much thought, I left Home Depot with a solid set of colors. The colors are a deep, but true red (not too much pink or purple in it), a rusty orange (with nice shades of brown mixed in but not too flat), a warm and creamy yellow, and chocolate brown and forest green for accents. Gramercy Mansion is a wood building with a garden and lawn, so I figured the greens and browns would be everywhere anyway. I will tie them into my decorations in small ways. Leah got some good ideas out of it too. She had a couple different sets, not ready to pick one quite yet.

The last step was to see them in the setting. In between touring Gramercy Mansion and signing the rental agreement, I pulled out my colors and took a look. They fit well with mansion. With colors, place, day and time set, I can really begin to envision the other pieces of the puzzle. Now I've got to go out there and find them!