More Than Just A Color

By Angela Ash

When making preparations for your wedding day, one of the major decisions is what colors to use. You may have a favorite color, but sometimes what we like to paint a bathroom in is not the same color we might like to see on our wedding cake.

Before selecting the colors for your wedding, you might want to discover what they actually mean.

Colors over the years have come to mean many things to many different people and different cultures. Native Americans and other earth-based spiritualities ascribed different colors to symbolize the different elements, while many eastern religions associate colors with a person's well-being and mental attitude.

Colors help us to understand and associate with things in a simpler manner. Colors are rich in hidden meanings and symbolisms, and they have very interesting stories to tell. Think of all of the ways that particular colors are used in our everyday phrases to illustrate a thought, a feeling, or an emotion. Surely you have heard the expressions "feeling blue", "green with envy", or having a "yellow stripe".

The foundation for color symbolism has been built upon hundreds of years of history, religion, tradition, superstition, and mythology. People were using colors to communicate before there were established languages. The idea of using colors as symbols is not a new one.

The warm colors are active and exciting. The cool colors are passive and calming. Light colors are active, while deep colors are likely to be passive.

Red is the most exciting color and is known to escalate the body's metabolism. Red has come to mean beauty, love, strength, energy, and courage.

Orange is the only color of the spectrum whose name was taken from an object - the fruit called the orange. In folklore, the color orange stands for fire and flames, adventure, and wholesomeness. Orange also has meaning for success, stimulating energy, justice, attraction, and endurance.

Yellow is the most cheerful color. The color yellow stands for the virtues of faith, constancy, wisdom, and glory. It also has been thought of as being a color that represents playfulness, light, creativity, warmth, mental powers, charm, confidence, vision, joy, and enthusiasm.

Green is peaceful. It represents harmony, growth, abundance, vitality, healing, and nature. Green is also a symbol of fertility.

Blue is the most calming color. It is considered to be the second most powerful color after red. The color blue stands for the sky, good health, sensitivity, truth, sleep, healing, hope, friendship, protection, calm, creativity, patience, wisdom, peace, and loyalty.

Indigo is the color that indicates dignity, tranquility, higher intuition, and trustworthiness. It shares many of the traits of blue but, being darker, it is more intense in those traits.

Violet is the color of royalty. Light purple is a fashion favorite, while dark purple implies wealth. The color purple is symbolic of power, spiritual goals, passionate belief, visionary leadership, and respect.

Pink stands for romance. Pink also symbolizes love, fidelity, friendship, honor, harmony, compassion and faithfulness.

Brown is the color of the earth, symbolizing the act of growing roots, or becoming more steadfast or "settled". Brown also symbolizes the home, friendship, and grounding.

Silver is the color that stands for encouragement, removal of negativity, and luck. Silver also is a symbol of the moon.

Gold symbolizes attraction. It has also been used for thousands of years as a color of royalty. A lion is gold, therefore also symbolizing leadership and power.

Gray is the color of neutrality. It often implies willingness to get along, being open minded, and decisive.

Keep all of this in mind when choosing your wedding colors. Everything in your life should “mean something”, ranging everywhere from something you simply “like” to your grandmother’s favorite shade of lavender.