10 Classic Wedding Colour Schemes To Reconsider

Choosing your wedding colours can feel like one of those deceptively simple decisions — until you realise those colours will influence almost everything, from the flowers and bridesmaids’ dresses to the invitations, table settings, cake details, signage, and even the mood of the day.

While there are always fresh trends popping up in the wedding world, some colour schemes never really disappear. They simply come back in softer, bolder, more modern, or more personal ways. Classic wedding colour combinations are popular for a reason: they photograph beautifully, suit a wide range of venues, and can be adapted for rustic barn weddings, elegant garden ceremonies, beach celebrations, vintage receptions, or simple backyard weddings.

If you are planning your wedding and feeling overwhelmed by colour choices, it might be worth taking a second look at some of the tried-and-true palettes you may have dismissed as too traditional. With the right flowers, textures, handmade details, and a few thoughtful DIY touches, these classic wedding colour schemes can feel fresh, stylish, and completely your own.

From soft blush and ivory to navy and gold, sage green, dusty blue, lavender, champagne, and timeless black-and-white, these wedding colour ideas are worth reconsidering before you lock in your final theme.

Terracotta

Rustic and elegant, a terracotta wedding style is perfect for fall weddings or any other time of the year.

2. Sage + Blush

Chic and pastel, a sage + blush wedding style is perfect for spring weddings or any other time of the year.

3. Burgundy + Green

Contrasting and elegant, a burgundy + green wedding style has a rustic boho look.

4. Dusty Blue

Dusty blue can be paired with so many other colours to make your own unique wedding color scheme. Why not try our favourites, sage green, dusty pink, or burgundy?

5. Silver + Gold

Elegant silver and gold looks great with white florals.

6. Greenery + Champagne

A trend rediscovered in 2020, greenery and champagne is pretty and basic.

7. Brown + Greenery

Brown + greenery is the ultimate boho style.

8. Lavender

Lavender looks excellent paired with navy blue, pinks, or even a bright yellow.

9. Hot Pink

Tropical and bright, hot pink is perfect for summer weddings or any other time of year.

10. Yellow + Green

Perfect for sunny weddings and those who love sunflowers.

It’s kind of coincidental that I recently posted about patchwork blanket knitting patterns right before reviewing a book that makes a patchwork blanket, but this one would also be a great choice if you’re looking to bust some stash and learn a lot about colorwork knitting at the same time.

Knit an Heirloom Blanket by Annah O’Leary includes charted designs for 50 colorwork blocks worked flat that can be combined to make a blanket or used in other projects. The book calls for worsted weight yarn but also offers suggestions for using fingering, DK or even bulky yarn, which will give you blocks of different sizes.

It opens with a section on materials and tips for choosing colors and maintaining contrast among blocks across a large project. There’s also information on how to read charts and colorwork basics such as maintaining tension, measuring gauge, catching floats, holding yarn and yarn dominance, among other things.

There are 196 squares (14 by 14) in the blanket shown on the cover, which, including the edging, makes for a blanket that’s about 79 inches, or 200 cm square knit in worsted weight yarn. You can adjust the size as needed by working more or fewer blocks, especially if using a different weight of yarn.

The sample was worked in Cascade 220 and the book includes the amounts of yarn used in each color so you can knit a blanket exactly as shown. Or use stash and leftovers from other projects to make a possibly less harmonious but more meaningful project.

Colorwork patterns are arranged into 10 themes: flowers, tiles, diamonds, stripes, peaks, woven, sky, leaves, lovestruck and architecture. They’re also rated by skill level on a range of 1 to 3 balls of yarn. If you’re newer to knitting or colorwork in particular, you can start with the easier squares and move up as you build more skills.

Each pattern is shown as a large black and white chart with three or four possible color variations, though or course you can also go your own way on the colors. There’s also a knit sample of each block pictured at the beginning of each pattern section.

There’s also a section to help you finish your blanket, including tips for weaving in ends, blocking, joining squares and adding a border. She also suggests different project sizes and color palettes for smaller scale projects.

In addition to the big blanket there are five other project ideas including a baby blanket made of 6 by 8 squares, a hot water bottle cover, a couple of pillows and a wall hanging. These are sure to give you ideas of different ways to use the blocks in other projects.

Knit an Heirloom Blanket includes lots of fun colorwork blocks and ideas for using them that are sure to appeal to those new to colorwork as well as those with more experience. Even if you never knit a full blanket with them, you can add these motifs to your collection to work in other projects.

About the book: 144 pages, paperback, 50 charts and 6 patterns. Published 2026 by David & Charles. Suggested retail price $25.99.

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