Choosing colours for your invitation

Colour is the fastest way to change how an invitation feels and the easiest place to overreach. A palette that looked beautiful on a mood board can read as garish at the size an invitation is actually seen.

Why ivory is the default#

Not tradition, or not only tradition. Warm off white does three things at once: it makes dark text as readable as it can be, it makes any accent colour look intentional, and it is the one background that never competes with a photograph.

It is the safest choice for a reason, and choosing it is not a failure of imagination.

When to go dark#

A dark invitation is a statement, and it works when the day is one. Evening receptions, black tie, city venues, winter.

Two things to know before you commit. Dark palettes photograph beautifully and print expensively, so if you are printing a handful for older relatives, check what it costs. And pale text on a dark ground is slightly harder to read at small sizes, so the type has to be generous.

If you are printing a QR code on anything, dark palettes are the one case where it is worth checking that a phone camera reads it happily. QR codes on wedding stationery covers that.

How many colours#

Three, and one of them is the paper.

• The ground. Ivory, white, a deep tone, or a soft colour
• The ink. Almost always near black or near white. Not a colour
• One accent. For a rule, a monogram, a small ornament

Two accents is where invitations start to look like brochures. If you have a wedding palette of five colours, the invitation takes one of them, not all five.

Do not set body text in your accent colour#

The most common mistake. Sage green text on ivory looks lovely at the size you designed it and is genuinely hard to read on a phone in daylight.

Names can carry colour. Everything a guest has to read carefully should be the darkest thing on the page.

Match the season, not the trend#

A palette that reads as current now will date faster than one that reads as seasonal, and the invitation is the thing people keep.

• Spring. Soft greens, blush, pale blue, cream
• Summer. White, sand, bright accents, a strong single colour
• Autumn. Rust, plum, olive, warm neutrals
• Winter. Deep greens, ink, plum, gold, and dark grounds

Check it on a phone, outdoors#

This is the test that matters and almost nobody does it. Most of your guests will open the invitation on a phone, some of them outside, many with the screen dimmed.

Look at yours that way before deciding. Palettes that are close in tone, such as sage on cream or grey on white, lose most of their contrast in daylight and the invitation goes from elegant to unreadable.

Should it match the day#

Loosely. The invitation sets an expectation and it is jarring when the day is completely different: a stark monochrome invitation for a garden wedding full of colour reads as a different event.

But it does not have to match the flowers. One shared colour is enough for the two to feel connected.

Colour and design are separate decisions#

Worth separating deliberately. The composition, meaning where the names sit and how the page is laid out, is a different question from what colour it is.

Choose the composition first, because it is the thing that makes an invitation feel formal or relaxed. Then colour it. Choosing an invitation design works through that order, and typefaces on an invitation covers the third axis.

Look at it small#

The last test. Shrink it until it is the size of a thumbnail in a message. If the names are still legible and the whole thing still reads as one object, the palette is working. If it has turned into a smudge, the contrast is too low.