With wedding themes and colours being as they often are, spring and summer sees television bridal shows and boutique windows inundated with feminine pastels and modern bright and jewel-toned bridesmaids' dresses. Some modern colour combinations like black and pink, or blue and taupe, are lovely, but what about colours for the modern bride who wants to do something different than everyone else and have a really striking, stylish wedding, without it coming off as gaudy or garish? With the right kind of design, silver might just fit the bill.
Silver fabric comes in many types, though most people usually associate it with metallic fabric like lamé. However, you can definitely use it to get a really chic, elegant look without having to resort to a super shiny, metallic material to avoid spoiling the burnished effect. Silver fabric comes in anything from a true silver, to a warmer, almost pewter shade, so there is a colour to suit any shape, style, or skin tone. True silvers tend to be cool-toned, and, as such, look best on cool complexions that favor blues, greens, and other cool colours. Some others are somewhat warmer, tending almost to a cooler version of bronze or pewter, and can still be suitable if your wedding party is chiefly medium- to dark-skinned, but you still want your girls in silver on your wedding day. For pulling off the colour on a bridesmaid's dress, a shiny fabric should be chosen (think silks or satins, instead of raw silk or jersey), since silver-toned fabrics with matte finishes tend to come off closer to grey or slate blue. Shiny fabrics create the look of metallic lustre, without being gaudy or garish like some actual metallic or heavily sequined fabrics can be.
Silver is a rather unusual colour choice, so bridesmaids' dresses should have clean, modern, simple lines, to avoid colour overkill. Accessories can be black, white, or even a complementary colour like blue or red. Jewelry should all be similarly toned, since gold or rose gold are warm-toned metals, and thus likely to clash with silver fabric, unless a very warm-toned pewter is chosen instead. If you love the idea of a silver bridesmaid's dress, but aren't necessarily loving the idea of that much of the colour, using some metallic beadwork over a dress of another colour, like black, can allow you to play around a bit without going all-out with a troupe of bridesmaids fully decked out in head-to-toe silver.
Silver isn't a oft-seen colour for weddings, not yet anyway, most likely since it can be a challenge to find really chic silver fabric that doesn't have an overly metallic look. With a good idea of exactly the look you are going for, an open mind, and freely experimental sense of style, it's possible for a modern bride to use this colour to have a wedding with a dazzling sense of elegance, opulence, and, most of all, uniqueness.
