2021 Ultimate Gray and Illuminating Yellow Pantone Wedding Color Motifs and Décor Ideas

Color inspiration is all around you when you’re ready to plan the details of your wedding, but some colors are better suited to the times than others. Although many brides hope to plan nuptials that are timeless, the fact is, every wedding is a reflection of the year or decade it was planned.

It’s not brides and grooms who choose blush and off white wedding details that love and appreciate their choices for years to come. Instead, it’s brides and grooms that are able to marry timeless wedding details with modern trends that are the ones who design beautiful, meaningful weddings that stand the test of time.

Creating the perfect wedding motif and décor isn’t easy because most brides and grooms aren’t experts in wedding planning or design. That’s why we should all turn to the experts, which includes Pantone.

Pantone, a leader in color trends, announces their top colors every year. These colors inspire design in many industries including apparel, beauty, home decor, media design, and of course, weddings. This year, the two colors they are forecasting to be huge in 2021 are:

PANTONE 17-5104 Ultimate Gray       PANTONE 13-0647 Illuminating

Deciding to use Pantone’s 2021 colors can make your life a lot easier when you’re ready to start planning what you’re going to wear and how your ceremony and reception spaces are going to look, but we encourage you to go beyond simply looking for ways to make things gray or yellow. By focusing on creating a motif instead of a color scheme, you can think about the big picture. Your motif should include every element throughout your wedding that gives it a certain theme or mood.

Here are the two primary motifs that work perfectly with these colors, depending on which color you want to take center stage on your big day.

Bright Yellow Ceremony Arch: Elizabeth Anne Designs, Paper Lantern Décor: Ruffled Blog, Yellow Ribbon Chair Decorations: Hey Wedding Lady, Cheerful Daisy Centerpiece: Whimsical Wonderland Weddings

Sunny, Bright, and Optimistic

2020 has been a difficult year for everyone. The pandemic has made us realize we have taken many things for granted as we’re all asked to spend more time at home and less time out in the world with friends and family. We could all use a little more bright sunny optimism in our lives, which is what makes the color Illuminating so powerful.

If you choose to make this cheerful yellow hue the focus of your décor, you should focus on designing a day that is as bright and cheery as this color. That might mean including whimsical details, like ribbons and paper lanterns in yellow and gray, as well as incorporating other bright colors like Marigold and Raspberry Sorbet.

Concrete Block Wedding Décor: Tart Event Co., Formal Gray and Yellow Table Setting: Style Me Pretty, Steel Ceremony Seating Arrangement: Ruffled Blog

Timeless Strength

Not only can we use more optimism in our lives, we could also use a little more strength. The pandemic has dragged on for months, making it easy to get discouraged that things will never go back to normal. Pantone’s Ultimate Gray is the perfect representation of staying the course. Steady and reliable, this hue looks modern when paired with Illuminating, but it reminds us that we can weather any storm, no matter how gray the clouds.

Weddings that choose this hue as the primary color for décor should feature more classic, steady wedding details. Think traditional glass vases instead of wood vases and more traditional place settings in lieu of trendy details.

Modern details can also be a good choice. Consider hosting your reception in an old warehouse and decorate with cement blocks and chrome furniture.

Using Ultimate Gray and Illuminating Yellow Motifs in Your Décor

Once you have decided on the tone you want to set throughout your ceremony and reception, it’s time to start planning your décor. There are a lot of details that are commonly found at all weddings, like table settings, ceremony aisles, and desert tables, but how these details look can vary widely depending on the motif and theme you choose.

If you’re struggling to find ways to make Pantone’s color of the year work when it comes to your décor, look no further! Here are a few of our favorite ways Pantone’s 2021 colors can be used to make your wedding day come alive.

Air Plant Bouquet With Hints of Yellow: Air Plant Design Studio, Bright Yellow Flower Arrangement: Mod Wedding

Bright Blooms

Even if you design tablescapes that don’t feature any flowers, you’ll likely have at least a few blooms in your bouquet, your bridesmaids bouquets, and the boutonnieres. You may also choose to use flowers to decorate your ceremony space, even if they aren’t being used on reception tables, or you may incorporate them into other details, like floral chandeliers or wreaths.

Gray isn’t a popular wedding flower color, so it’s best to focus on the cheerful color of Illuminating when choosing flower arrangements. From sunflowers to dahlias and calla lilies to roses, there is no shortage of blooms to choose from.

If you’re going for a Timeless Strength theme in lieu of a Sunny, Bright, and Optimistic event, there are ways you can tone down this hue. Choose blooms in more subdued shades of yellow, like crème, and use pops of natural gray. Silvery-gray air plants can look quite stunning in a modern bouquet, as can certain iris varieties. Florentina is an especially stunning iris that looks beautiful in spring bouquets.

Industrial Metal and Gray Reception Table: Epoch Events

Industrial Style

If you love the idea of using gray details throughout your wedding, you should definitely consider industrial styling. Industrial spaces, like lofts that feature cement ceilings and exposed brick walls, hanging Edison bulbs, and minimalistic details are all hallmarks of the industrial look.

One of the great things about pairing these two Pantone colors of the year together is the fact that Ultimate Gray lends itself well to a modern, industrial wedding, but using pops of Illuminating ensures that your wedding doesn’t feel cold. Use yellow table numbers, sprinkle floral arrangements with bright blooms, or layer yellow charger plates under galvanized metal plates and bowls with silver details.

Relaxed Table Setting with Hanging Flower Petals: Once Wed

Whimsical Details

If the industrial style isn’t really your thing, you don’t have to give up on Pantone’s color palette for 2021. If you focus a little more on yellow and a little less on gray, you’ll find that whimsical details lend themselves well to both of these Pantone colors.

When it comes to flowers, nothing is more fun and cheerful than billy balls. They come in bright yellow—the perfect hue to match Pantone’s Illuminating—and they look whimsical and fun in any bouquet, table setting, or boutonniere.

A more relaxed vibe goes well with this concept as well, which means you can fuss a little less over table settings and decorations. Incorporate feathers, purposefully wrinkled fabrics, and pom pom balls for a little extra easy-going fun.

Shimmering Tablescape With Metallic Details: CJ’s Off The Square

Shimmering Metallics

Gray can sometimes look a little flat and boring, which are two things you don’t want your wedding to be. If you’re looking for a way to liven up your big day, consider using metallic gray hues instead of focusing solely on traditional gray details.

Pantone has actually created a color palette that utilizes shimmering metallic tones. It features Chrome and Luxe Lemon, which are basically the glittered up versions of Ultimate Gray and Illuminating.

Silver is the perfect gray to feature at any wedding celebration, but it is especially beautiful in the winter. If you love the industrial look, opt for chrome and stainless steel details. Everything from chairs to vases, silverware, and ceremony arches can be found in these budget-friendly materials.

Gold can be a way to incorporate shimmering yellow into your wedding, but we encourage you to find brighter hues. Think yellow glitter table runners, satin swags, and sheer yellow organza that will give your décor a shimmering look.

Table in a Yellow Daffodil Field: La Bandita Country Hotel, Yellow and Gray Centerpiece With Lemons: Style Me Pretty, Fall Sunflower Ceremony Arch: Wedding Forward, Pinecone and Yellow Leaf Wreath: A Pretty Fix

Yellow for Every Season

When you think about using Illuminating at a wedding, spring and summer celebrations are likely to come to mind. It’s true that adding this color to weddings taking place during the first part of 2021 seems intuitive, but don’t make the mistake of thinking you can’t incorporate bright yellow hues into a fall or winter wedding.

Flowers that match the season are a good first step to making sure your wedding doesn’t seem out of place. For example, sunflowers are perfect for a fall wedding, while 

incorporating wintery details, like evergreen boughs and pinecones can set the tone for a yellow winter wedding.

Using muted tones of Illuminating yellow, along with gray details, can help make a yellow fall or winter wedding a little less bright. Try incorporating shades like goldenrod, crème, and tan to make your color scheme come alive.

Yellow Reception Couch: Junebug Weddings

Surprising Pops of Yellow and Gray

Most people expect pops of yellow to show up in bouquets and gray to accentuate table settings, but you should have a little fun with these colors and use them in unexpected ways.

For example, choose muted tones for floral centerpieces, but color the water with yellow food coloring. Use gray frosting on cookie favors that decorate each place setting, serve drinks in silver aluminum tumblers, or utilize yellow furniture throughout your reception space.

The more creative you get, the more guests are likely to remember the details!

Gray Ribbon Aisle Décor: Botanical Brouhaha

Classy-Casual Designs

One of our favorite things about pairing these two colors is that they are the perfect embodiment of classy-casual. Gray and metallic tones, like silver and steel, often look very formal, while yellow looks fun, relaxed, and playful. When you put Ultimate Gray and Illuminating together, you can create a classy-casual atmosphere at your wedding.

Think groomsmen in gray suits sitting at tables covered in billy ball flowers, formal table settings complete with charger plates, dinner forks, and salad forks that also feature yellow glasses and whimsical lobster napkin rings, and minimalistic ceremony aisles decorated with yellow ribbons that blow in the wind.