Colors impact largely every sphere of our lives and can impact our mood, luck, attitude, and general temperament in a significant way. Weddings and wedding colors have a very intimate relationship and can make or break the general aesthetics of your special day. If you are new to the term "Pantone", let's get the confusion out of the way by stating how the Pantone Color of the Year comes with a weight and legacy of its own. Pantone has not only influenced product construction and buying decisions in multiple industries for the last 20 years, but it also sets the trend for a tone that will be the ‘Color of The Year’ for the year ahead. This is surely no hasty decision but is a consideration made after close reflection and trend analysis. To arrive at the decision each year, Pantone’s color experts at Pantone Color Institute filter the world looking for fresh new color influences. This can be anything from the entertainment industry to films in production, art, and fashion, trending travel destinations, socio-economic conditions, technologies, textures, and more which are predicted to capture worldwide attention in the coming year. This is the color that will be witnessed throughout 2020- be it fashion, home furnishings, product creation and packaging, graphic designing, and more. And like all good things related to aesthetics, it will trickle down to weddings too!

The colors for the year ahead!

The 2021 year brings with it the power of contrasts and the sweet juxtaposition of the stoic plain canvas and the vibrancy of color! Truly, representative of sunshine pouring through a gray cloud, the color combination might have a lot to say of the year ahead. PANTONE 17-5104 Ultimate Gray and PANTONE 13-0647 Illuminating are a champion combo and are two independent colors that highlight how two distinctive elements come together to assist one another, which aptly expresses the mood for Pantone Color of the Year 2021. Practical and solid while still being approachable and full of promises, the perfect blend of PANTONE 17-5104 Ultimate Gray and PANTONE 13-0647 Illuminating speaks of showing strength in trying times, and of positivity. A combo that perfectly encapsulates the intense complexities of thoughtfulness along with the promise of something vibrant and welcoming. It can't be any more relevant than it is right now as it tells the story of a color which spreads a message of happiness sustained by strength. The combination reassures us with the feeling that everything is going to be just fine, something that we could all use right now. PANTONE 13-0647 Illuminating, true to its name, is bright and cheery and demonstrates sparkling vivacity and along with a warm and welcoming feeling of being instilled with solar power. It is surely a color that makes one think of sunflowers and daffodils, long summer afternoons, butter melting on toast, and tangy lemons. It is youthful, full of life and optimism, something which we hope that this year represents perfectly. PANTONE 17-5104 Ultimate Gray, on the other hand, is symbolic of all things dependable and practical and provides a firm and everlasting foundation. From concrete buildings to rocks one skips on the lake, the appearance of this color is that of natural and weathered components which will stand the test of time while fighting the elements of nature quite effectively! Gray is somber, deep, steady, and solid, making it quite the fitting counterpart of the more cheerful part of the duo. Given their starkly different personalities, the combination just works beautifully, pulling in the audience with the beautiful contrast of moods. The apt display of duality, these two colors lean on each other well and bring out the best of each other. Together, the duo promotes the need to be seen, heard, and reckoned. While there is a youthful optimism to the combination and the acknowledgment of innovation and intuition, there is also the strong backing of age-old wisdom, experience, and knowledge that refreshingly solidifies the color combination. An interesting mix of colors borrowed from the sun and the sunny-side-ups to the stark wisdom of grays which have braved the elements and known things, the colors of 2021 are the right mix of inquisition and knowledge and are wildly different yet balanced!

How the Pantone colors can be used in weddings

Decor: The flecks of these tones in your wedding decor can bring your ambiance to life! Be it in table settings, floral arrangements, or lanterns, the duo. Let us check out these different ways you can incorporate these colors into your wedding decor.

•  Flowers bring a theme to life and introducing the right tone of yellow flowers to the bridal bouquets, boutonniere, and floral decors can truly add the element of the latest colors into your wedding day. From yellow roses to daffodils, from quaint and beautiful sunflowers to daisies, incorporate the right amount of yellow with yellow blooms, and there are many to choose from! You can balance the cheery yellow with gray metallic vases or candle holders.

•  Another way to add color to your wedding decor is through table settings. Not only does it extend the theme to your dinner table, but it also adds a bit of color to your dinner plate. Adding yellow and gray to your table setting also means you get to play with your cutlery, decor accents, silverware, and more! There are a lot of opportunities to be explored here!

•  If you are using fabric drapes in your wedding, a smart way to incorporate your Pantone colors is through these! This also runs true for the table linens, curtains, and more! Since the fabric is usually a blank canvas, it is the easiest way to invite the colors into your wedding landscape

•  Stationaries are a genius way of incorporating wedding colors. Whether it is the wedding invitation that hints at the colors even before the wedding happens, or it is the seating arrangement, the wedding stationery has a lot to say and certainly the perfect platform for the wedding colors to come true.

•  Speaking of wedding decor, we can't go without mentioning lighting, and you can play around the lighting smartly in both the colors by experimenting with both warm yellow lights and moody gray lighting, and the effect will be charming and unique.

Clothing: The easiest way to incorporate color is by infusing it into the clothing of the wedding party. The tones can be brought into the mix with the help of the bridesmaids and groomsmen's clothing as well as the marrying couple's ensemble. Let us look into different ways that you can bring gray and yellow into your wedding theme.

• •  Bridesmaid dresses are the quickest way to introduce color to your wedding. There are a number of routes one can take while using yellow and gray in the bridesmaid dresses, going with either of the two colors or fusing both for an ombre effect. Various degrees of these two colors can be used in many different combinations, leading to various different possibilities every time.
  
  

• •  Easy-breezy and a choice that is favored by most men, a gray suit is a go-to for most weddings, and with this theme, it just so happens to be just the perfect fit. Let the groom or the groomsmen dress up in sharp gray suits and add yellow accents to their attire to contribute to the Pantone color balance in a flattering and effortless way.
  
  

• •  Unconventional bridal gowns, whether it is a cheery yellow hue or a more edgy gray on, can be another way to embrace the colors more bravely. More and more brides are choosing unconventional colors as their preferred wedding dress color, and there is no way yellow and gray should fall behind.
  
  

• •  Staying true traditional and to your alternative wedding colors instead? You don't have to mix up the alignment. Let your flower girl and your ring bearer add in these colors instead, and the impact will be less amplified, but still relevant!
  
  
  

Accessories: A tint of yellow in your flower girl’s dress or a dash of gray in your groom’s watch can add to the overall effect beautifully. There are so many opportunities for you to get creative here. Add in these gorgeous colors as your preferred footwear or an accessory and let it bring the look together. Here is how!

• •  Speaking of accessories, the way you can add some color to your wedding ensemble is through your hair accessories. Add in some yellow flowers to your hair or short a sparkling yellow hair clip, and you will have successfully added a dash of yellow to your attire! If gray is more your choice, go for a lush velvet ribbon to adorn your hair, and you will be good to go!
  
  

• •  A splash of color exhibited in the way of a bowtie or a necktie can be the perfect way to invite the year’s favorite color in. Whether you go for a peppy yellow tone or a stale gray hue, you will be just fine regardless. These colors can appear throughout the ensemble, whether as a pop in the socks, or a boutonnière, adding to the total effect.
  
  

• •  Adding a bit of gray with metallic touches can add some brownie points while keeping you looking sharp. The groom and groomsmen can add smart gray details to their ensemble by adding watches, tie pins and cufflinks, and add to the Pantone approved look.
  
  

• •  Add a bit of sparkle along with color by adding yellow sparkling gemstones to your jewelry, and it is a luxurious and understated way to play the Pantone colors up! You can consider jewelry with citrine, sapphire, topaz, tourmaline, and transparent opal to add the bling to the mix.
  
  
  

Food: An unexpected way to get this color infusion right? Invite them over to the food table. From the bar to the dessert table, using the colors in the food and drinks is an ingenious idea to run the theme home. Let us look into some ideas on how to do it perfectly!

• •  While gray drinks might be hard to come by, you can use gray-tinted stemware and go for a vibrant yellow drink, be it the signature cocktails or just lemonade! If it is hard to whip up a yellow drink, you can also go for edible yellow flowers to add a dash of color!
  
  

• •  From tarts to cupcakes, painting a dessert yellow is not a hard thing to execute. The easiest platform for color integration, inviting shades of yellow and gray to your dessert table might be just the thing to do when it comes to inviting Pantone favorites to your wedding day.
  
  

• •  Whether it is through vibrant fruit salads in yellow tones and served in edgy concrete bowls, or it is a bowl of lemons, displaying colorful fruits can up your game and bring forth the Pantone colors perfectly.
  
  
  

Wedding colors seem to carry the responsibility of determining the mood of a wedding on its dainty shoulders, and it surely does a graceful job of it! It is the range of vibrant colors that establishes and perfectly balances the aesthetic balance of the wedding, and picking the right tones can sometimes make all the difference. This is precisely why most couples immerse themselves in the complicated color names and matching color samples to ensure that the color combination that they end up choosing progress beautifully with their wedding theme, while still staying true to the ebbs and flows of the trend-o-meter!

While there are some classically favorable color combinations, once in a while there strides in a color combination that just works, maybe because of the trend wave or the collective mindset of the market. Being on the right side of the color wheel ensures you that your wedding is alluring aesthetically and is conveniently favored by all! If you want your wedding day to look like a Pinterest picture and currently on-trend, keeping close tabs on the Pantone colors can be the smart thing to do. After all, we all want our weddings to be aesthetic and inviting!