Did you know you can ruin your wedding pictures with one poor choice? I see brides unintentionally sabotage their pictures all the time. And I don’t fault them for two reasons.
One, they’re likely inexperienced. Most of the weddings I see are first-time weddings. These brides have never picked bridal flowers before. So they don’t know what they don’t know.
Second, when they choose their flowers, they’re also likely making their decision based on a theme, feel, or vibe they want for their special day. Their choice is tied more closely to emotion than color principles.
It’s the florists who should know better and steer the brides away from making this huge mistake. But since they apparently don’t, I’ll tell you – and show you – what you need to know.
What’s The Big Mistake?
The big mistake brides make is forgetting the principle that the eye is drawn to color. So if you choose a colorful bouquet, that’s what will draw the eye in your pictures. And that is NOT what you want. Flowers are an accessory, not the main attraction. The bride’s face should be the focus of bridal pictures. Her flowers must not visually upstage her.
Here’s what I’m talking about.
The very first thing you see in the picture on the left is those dark red flowers. She might as well have had fireworks spraying from them because they are the main visual event. Now, the sister helped herself out a bit by matching her lipstick to the flowers. That helps move the eye from the flowers to her face, but imagine the picture if she didn’t. Not every bride would feel comfortable wearing that dark of a lipstick shade. (Plus you risk dark lipstick on your teeth – which would keep your photographer busy with Photoshop.)
The bridal picture on the right is much better, though not perfect. The flowers don’t compete nearly as much with her face because she’s chosen white flowers, but there’s still an awful lot of greenery. Green is a color. Though not as intense as red, it still distracts. But if this bride had added a brighter pink lipstick, the greenery would be less of an issue because even that little bit of bright pink would visually overtake it.
Are You Ready To See A Perfect Choice?
Pure white flowers with minimal contrast are a perfect choice. Even though the flowers are held right next to her face, her face is what draws the eye because that’s where the color is concentrated. She even wore a more natural color lipstick and it looked great. She didn’t need anything brighter because her flowers don’t steal the focus away from her face. The bride is the star of this picture, not her flowers.
There’s an additional benefit to having a white bridal bouquet. It’ll make you look thinner. Think about where a bride usually holds her flowers – at her waist. If you don’t think that’s your best feature area, why draw attention to it with a colorful, visual target? A white bouquet neutralizes that area since the eye is drawn up to the face.
I’m not saying brides need to abandon color altogether. They just need to be strategic about where to put it. And where to put it is on the bridesmaids.
Say you just have to have red or you’ll die. You can. But there’s a better way to do it. Take a look at these two brides and their bridesmaids. (These two pictures came from public Pinterest posts.)
Based on what you now know about the eye being drawn to color, you know which bride did it the better way. If you do it the better way, you won’t be upstaged by your bouquet. And you won’t ruin your wedding pictures with one poor choice.
