As we look into wedding trends for 2021 and into 2022, we thought we’d dive right into one of the more intimidating color palettes couples will find as they begin searching and conceptualizing their wedding day. Every year and wedding cycle has a variety of styles and color palettes, from bold to classic, to help inspire you. For this wedding cycle, two intimidating colors to work with are teal and burnt orange. Both very strong with instant presence, at first they may feel extremely overwhelming and overpowering. But once you dive a bit deeper you can see how incredibly they play off each other. And with the right combination of supporting colors and details, can actually create an absolutely stunning and sophisticated color palette that is just perfect for a wedding vibe that’s looking for a boho or retro vibe. This post will take a look at how these colors work and how they can come together to create a gorgeous romantic wedding design with a stunning modern boho-retro vibe.

Teal: bold. confident. mysterious.

Teal itself has a range that incorporates green to blue tones. It’s very unique in the sense it can combine both water and earthy elements. It’s highly sophisticated, rich, dreamy, bold, confident, but at the same time soothing and intriguing. If you gravitate towards blue tones but are looking for something a bit more modern or more expressive, teal is a wonderful color to consider working with. Its bridge tones with blue allows us to explore and work with different shades of blue and greys to wonderful effect. Likewise, it’s green tones connect us to a variety of green shades we can work with. This makes it a universal color that can adapt to any season and most venues and spaces as well. Using it as a main color is a wonderful way to instantly set the tone in your venue space and bridal party, and provide a springboard for your florals and décor. If you’re not keen on using it as a main color, it can be an exquisite color to use as an accent color to instantly draw the eye and elevate your wedding design style to the next level.

Burnt Orange: earthy. passionate.

Orange hues — especially burnt orange — is considered a classic “retro” color. Think mid-century, very late ’60s – early and mid ’70s, Southern California style,  Palm Springs chic. It’s heavily earthy, inspired by both terrain, sky, and fruit. It has a heavy influence from California and Spanish influence: think terra cotta, ceramic tile roofs, desert terrain, Spanish oranges, persimmons, earthy clay pots and plates. It also takes heavily from natural sunsets, especially from Mediterranean climates — that orange sunburst that deepens into that fiery orange red tone. It’s emotive, passionate, earthy, humble yet has a lot to say. Burnt orange can be a tricky color to work with. Many people are turned off by its overtly earthy tones and can find it too old fashioned or boring. But the color itself actually exists on a spectrum. True enough, on its darkest expression it can read almost brown, but at its lightest can range into peach tones territory, along the way punctuated with bold and cheerful hues more like tangerine and valencia orange. At full voice, it expresses like a rich baritone, allowing for deeper color expression to higher frequency soft romantic orange-kissed hues.

A magical combination.

Using teal and burnt orange together creates a powerhouse team of color and expression.

Together they play off each other perfectly: teal draws the eye and smooths and soothes while burnt orange gives you an undertone of fire and romantic sunsets. Then fuller developing your color palette with neutrals and greens will create a spectacular expression that can suite any season, venue, and  your personal style.

Let’s see how this can work in a real wedding design!

Off the bat as we said, the burnt orange will give you a retro undercurrent in your wedding style. I wanted to create a color palette that isn’t so heavy on that retro vibe, but rather is pulling in on that romantic, even subtly Spanish influence. I’m thinking a late summer wedding — perhaps September — venue that has some gorgeous natural neutral texture like brick or sandstone I can work with as backdrop…. maybe tiled floor and wooden tables that can hit that slightly retro vibe. But I want this to feel romantic and beautiful — I want to create a style and vibe that’s mostly botanical but that has hints of retro and also modern and chic. And that still feels a bit of Ireland.

I’m choosing a pretty even true tone of teal then — one that’s literally equal in blue and green tones so I can accent with both and definitely incorporate a bit of green into my main color palette. I’ve chosen a brighter tone of burnt orange called “dragon fire” so I can clearly use it as a eye-catching tone that will feature confidently, but allow me the space to play with the darker neutrals and softer neutral tones. Which is why I choose peach as another main color — again, the more neutral tone here instantly softens bold orange and begins to tell a story. I want to keep this a touch earthy and Irish, so I’m going with rosemary for my green — earthy, still suits that Mediterranean tone but also Ireland that will work as a perfect base to start toning my other greens (lighter to darker) off of to create dimension. And voila! I present my mood board featuring teal and burnt orange, one of the 2021-22 wedding trends:

I’d love a earthy exposed wood table to again hit that earthy and botanical tone. A teal table runner at once draws the eye and gives a springboard for my flowers and decor to shine. Flowers I want more neutral toned — soft, romantic, countryside, very botanically expressive with lots of greens and movement. I love this botanical floral china that perfectly expresses my color palette. To accent, I love some modern gold cutlery and simple sleek glassware. A a neutral napkin like sandstone will perfectly offset a modern and chic charcoal menu that again takes that burnt orange color tone into metallic form this time. Accents of burnt orange candles and antique brassy gold is the perfect compliment against the teal table cloth. For my centerpiece cake, something like this gorgeous tile detailed cake by Cupcakes & Counting both expresses my theme and color palette, as well as serving as decorative piece.

Make It Your Own

I hope you can start to see how you can take a trend to inspire you, not dictate to you how to work with it. We didn’t need to create a 1970’s style wedding with burnt orange; all we needed to do is to dive into its soul and see what speaks to us and how it can work with our personal style and venue and interpret it to work for us.

I’m excited to see how you’ll use some of 2021-22’s wedding trend colors teal and burnt orange for your wedding day!