Mothers of the Bride, What Color Dress Should You Wear to the Wedding?
A lot goes into planning the right mother-of-the-bride outfit. You want to keep your fashion game on point but also want to make sure you meet all the wedding color guidelines. Without having a plan in place, it can get seemingly challenging to find the outfit you’ll fall in love with. Once you know which factors to consider, finding the right dress simply becomes a breeze. The way to go would be to ask yourself:
In Which Season will the Wedding Take Place?
The season your daughter’s wedding unfolds in has a fair amount of influence on the kind of dress you should be wearing.
Summer is all about light, flowy dresses. It’s the perfect time to go a tad bit crazy with bright and vivid color options. From pinks to light blues to fiery orange-reds – the color options for this season are countless. Materials like tulle, chiffon, or organza can go beautifully with summer colors. While summer weddings welcome bright hues, colors like navy, blush, and beige look just as gorgeous. Mothers of brides can also flaunt neutrals in this season.
Spring is when you’ll see several daytime weddings unfold. Gentle rains, vibrant blossoms, and a fresh scent of nature call for cooler and lighter colors. You can go for baby blue, pale green, light yellow, or even dusty pink.
Fall weddings often offer a warmer backdrop with beautifully textured foliage. This is the best time to wear jewel-toned outfits. You can explore options in burgundy, cobalt blue, or rich emerald. Materials like silk, velvet, brocade, and lace can beautifully complement the color you’re choosing.
Winter weddings typically demand dark colors like burgundy or navy colors. It’s also the best time to wear attires in gold, silver, or rose gold.
What Colors Will the Wedding Party Be Painted In?
From flowers to embellishments to outfits – the wedding party colors literally determine every element of the wedding. As a rule of thumb, your dress must complement this color palette instead of clashing with it. For instance, wearing a dark color dress for a beach wedding can disturb the visual aesthetics of the wedding photographs. Nude or off-white colors, on the other hand, would perfectly align with a color palette that glows with beachy or natural hues.
Discuss the wedding party colors with the bride and brainstorm which color would look the best against the wedding’s backdrop. Once you have a few suitable options shortlisted, the next step would be to factor other elements like your skin tone, bridal party colors, and more into the equation.
Which Color Flatters Your Skin Tone the Most?
Skin tone is another factor that may influence how good a certain color looks on you. While warm skin tones look gorgeous in warmer colors, cool skin tones look beautiful in cooler hues.
Women with warm skin tones can dazzle in colors like coral, red, amber, peach, orange, and yellow. Neutrals like taupe, cream, and cappuccino can also make for a great outfit. Other warm shades of cool colors – moss, violet-red, orchid, and olive – are a few more beautiful options to go with.
Women with cool skin tones can shine in deep purples, blues or ice blue, lavender, and pink. If you’re looking for warmer colors, you can try pale yellows or rosy reds. Neutral options like navy and grays would also look gorgeous on you.
Should You Match the Bride’s Wedding Dress Color?
The most important thing to avoid for the mother of the bride – or just about any wedding guest for that matter – is to match your dress color with that of the bride. That said, If the bride goes for a color that is non-conventional – light blue or rose gold, for example – she probably wouldn’t mind approving a white mother-of-bride dress.
Which Colors to Avoid?
White, ivory, and cream-colored dresses are usually out of bounds because they can snatch the spotlight away from the bride. But if you’re looking for a dress that is light in color, neutrals are here to save the day. You can go for beige, greys, taupe, or other off-white colors for a gorgeous look that complements the wedding hues.
Should You Match the Bridesmaids?
The reason a lot of work goes into picking the perfect mother-of-bride dress majorly relates to wedding photographs. Once a wedding color palette is finalized, everything – including the colors the bridal party wears – must be fully in sync with this palette.
Great colors mean great photographs. Since you’ll appear in most photographs with the bride and her bridal party, it’s a good idea to determine how your dress can complement the colors of the bridal party. The last thing you want is your dress color clashing with that of the bridesmaids or even the wedding party colors for that matter.
If you’re ever unsure about the color of your dress, neutrals can be your best bet. You can make your design look more elegant by embellishing it with contrasting neutrals or metallics.
What About Matching the Mother of the Groom?
If you go by the tradition, it’s the mother of the bride who chooses her dress first. Today, however, mothers pick what they like. If you’re not following the tradition, it’s a good idea to have a chat with the mother of the groom about what she plans to wear.
This will help you ensure your dress doesn’t end up clashing with the mother of the groom’s dress in the wedding photographs. In addition, discussing your dresses will also ensure they aren’t entirely (or almost) similar.
Discussing these elements helps you narrow down your search further so you can finally pick a dress that matches your personal style and looks perfect against the wedding’s color theme!
Before You Go…
Your daughter’s wedding is a once-in-a-lifetime event. So, naturally, you want to look your absolute best. However, considering the factors mentioned above, it’s important to put in a good amount of thought before you finalize a dress. After all, planning your outfit well is not only meant for the wedding. You will be appearing in most of the photographs with the bride and the bridal party.
We hope this article will help you not only look your absolute best at your daughter’s wedding but also blend in perfectly with the overall wedding colors. That said, if you’re trying to find the perfect mother-of-the-bride dress, you can explore a wide range of high-end designer dresses that NewYorkDress offers!
