Planning for a fall wedding includes picking your theme, finding the right colors, and using the icons of fall.

Images of fall usually include the vivid colors of changing leaves, and planning a fall wedding can be an exercise in living in vivid colors. Deep shades of red with contrasting shades of yellow, the range and subtle array of colors that fill the woods can provide some amazing inspiration for planning a fall wedding.

Planning for a fall wedding is a popular opportunity for creating a wedding with a strong theme, and for some people, a very strong theme. If the only thing holding you back from designing a costume wedding is what people might say about it, you may want to consider taking advantage of the fall season and just simply going for it! If that closet goth that you’ve been hiding from all of your friends is inside of you jumping up and down and clapping in excitement at the idea of a Halloween costume style wedding, you may want to talk to your better half. It would be fun, crazy, and outrageous - but life is short and you only live once!

If that’s just not your style, you can still have a strong theme for the wedding without having to invite the guests to show up in their Halloween costume of choice for the year, and just create an environment that strongly reflects your theme. Fall is a great time of year to create a themed wedding, partly because all of the availability of all the Halloween supplies in stock. You can take full advantage of that and create a real atmosphere for both your wedding and your reception fairly inexpensively.

Picking the right theme really means picking the right theme for you. We’re certainly not suggesting that you just throw everybody else’s opinion out the window in callous disregard for their wishes, wants, or needs, but no matter what compromises you draw you can still express your own unique values and interests within that.

One of the ways that you can do that is in your choice of colors. You could choose to go with black and orange – the traditional colors of Halloween – for your wedding, and soften the contrast by incorporating the shades of autumn, as well. Beautiful ranges of reds and golds can help to blend and soften that sharp contrast of color. You could also choose reds and golds as your primary color scheme and use black and orange for small accents throughout your wedding decorations.

The icons of fall include beautifully colored leaves as they change, pumpkins and squash and trees beginning to bare their unadorned beauty. You can use these icons of fall with ease and simplicity. Anything from incorporating the colors of fall into your wedding bouquet with natural or silk maple and oak leaves, decorating the reception tables with small pumpkins and squash, to handing out silk leaves to throw as the bridge and groom leave for the honeymoon. Think big, think creatively, and use the vivid colors of fall to plan for your fall wedding – and a vivid life!