What is The Meaning of an Orange Wedding Dress?

Orange encompasses the best of both worlds: the passion, courage, energy, confidence, and strength of red and the positivity, warmth, youth, and hope of yellow.

Of course, orange also evokes its unique associations, such as creativity, expression, enthusiasm, and safety. It’s a wedding dress color for confident brides who aren’t afraid of attention.

Although an orange bridal gown may seem overly unusual to some people in western regions, this color is sacred in many Asian cultures.

Orange has numerous positive implications and is equally suitable for a religious and informal wedding.

Creativity

Orange is a stimulating, motivating color that is believed to boost creativity. You can’t feel down surrounded by the bright shades of orange.

Indeed, choosing orange among all the variety of wedding dress colors is creative, to say the least. It’s one of the most unusual wedding gown colors that will be appreciated by truly artistic, extravagant brides.

Optimism

Orange color always contains yellow, though its content varies. While orange shades with a high percentage of red are often seen as dangerous and passionate, yellowish-orange shades are highly optimistic.

Orange is an uplifting color that can improve our mood – that’s why it’s often used in food, social, and sports-related advertising.

Interior designers commonly use shades of orange for shared spaces such as living or dining rooms.

The fact that yellowish-orange is the color of many citrus fruits and citrus fruits contain vitamin C known to improve mood further supports our association between this shade and positivity.

Can you imagine a depressed, dramatic bride in an orange wedding gown? Likely not. It’s much more suitable attire for a smiling, friendly, and humorous woman.

Strength & Courage

Orange is a combination of red and yellow, so it’s natural that orange shares some associations with these colors.

Red is traditionally seen as the color of power, courage, and strength, and so is its lighter variation.

Meanwhile, courage and strength of red color are often linked with negative concepts such as war and battle.

But since orange contains a hint of yellow that means happiness and enthusiasm, the courage and strength of orange also carry a more positive meaning.

Even some of the world’s strongest, most fearless animals have orangey fur – for instance, tigers, foxes, caracals, and lions.

These creatures are truly magnificent and know their worth, just like a bride wearing an orange dress.

An orange wedding dress is a perfect choice for courageous, adventurous brides who admire spontaneity and seek adrenaline.

This color encourages you to get out of your comfort zone – and wearing an orange dress for your wedding is an excellent example of such behavior.

Youth & Energy

Orange is a powerful and stimulating color that increases appetite and boosts metabolism. This dynamic, enthusiastic color is undoubtedly the embodiment of youth and energy.

Of course, “youth” refers to the inner feeling and perception of life rather than the date of birth state in your passport.

It relates to open-mindedness, an aim for learning and experiencing something new, and love for the whole world.

Only a genuinely young soul could choose a bright orange wedding dress. If you’ve decided to wear such a colorful wedding gown, you’re likely an outgoing, extroverted, and highly empathetic person.

Passion

Many of the red color meanings can be attributed to orange, including passion and desire. Red is an intense color of fire, blood, and roses, commonly associated with romance, sensitivity, and sexuality.

Like red, orange is a vibrant, radiant color, but it has less lust to it and more joy. A bride wearing red may be seen as a heartbreaker, a diva, or a drama queen.

A bride in an orange wedding gown, in turn, is more likely to be seen as passionate about her hobbies, partner, and life in general – but in a solely positive way.

Warmth, Fire, Sunshine

Orange is associated with fire and sun, the two things that give us warmth and light. Same as fire and sun, the hug or a loved one makes us feel warm and safe, both physically and emotionally.

An orange wedding dress showcases the bride’s commitment to preserving the family hearth. In Ancient Greece, the goddess of the home was Hestia. She is often depicted with flaming ginger hair and fire in her hands.

In Hinduism, orange is considered the most sacred color, especially saffron yellowish-orange shade.

It symbolizes fire and, unexpectedly, purity, which makes an orange gown a great alternative to a white wedding dress. In Christian Bible, orange stands for the fire of God.

Orange is also the color of Buddhist monks, representing the flame of a burning fire, which is a symbol of truth. However, some suggest that this color was chosen due to the low availability of other dyes back in the day.

Safety

Since orange is the color of warmth, our brain also indirectly links it with safety due to the evolutionary importance of fire and sun to people.

However, this may also work the opposite way – the orange color may indicate danger.

Perhaps, that’s a matter of the shade. Vivid, toxic orange seen in the pattern of some frogs and snakes signals us to stay away from that animal.

Meanwhile, cozy dark orange and butterscotch shades are associated with safety.

Another reason we link the orange color with safety is its common use in specialized safety clothing and equipment. Orange has long been used for U.S. Navy pilot and astronaut uniforms due to its brilliant visibility.

For the same reason, orange is widespread in road signs, traffic cones, and firefighter cars. This bright shade increases awareness, instantly drawing attention. In fact, this shade is explicitly known as “safety orange.”

Of course, you don’t necessarily have to wear a safety orange wedding gown to express your desire for protection or readiness to protect the family yourself.

Still, people are very likely to draw such associations seeing the bride in an orange dress.

Fall

In western cultures, the orange color is often associated with the fall season. It’s the color of autumn leaves, pumpkins, gingerbread, carrot cake, and cinnamon added to fall drinks, such as pumpkin spice latte.

Thus, an orange dress for a fall wedding seems a natural choice, especially if you’re planning a themed event.

Orange color incorporated in your attire, wedding cake, and venue decoration will create a cozy and uplifting atmosphere.

Dresses in deep and intense shades of persimmon, pumpkin, saffron, burnt orange, Persian orange, and Tiger’s eye will perfectly suit a wedding in a fall theme.

You may want to leave lighter shades of orange, such as peach and coral, for a warmer season.

Since orange is an autumn color, everything associated with this season can also be told about the color.

In a symbolic context, autumn is associated with abundance and wealth, as it’s the time of rich harvests. An orange wedding dress is linked to the desire for prosperity in family life.

Autumn is also the most mature season, the time of change in nature.

Thus, orange is the perfect wedding dress color for a second wedding – unlike the white color that represents purity, orange stands for wisdom and experience of the bride.

Orange is also connected with wisdom because autumn is the most balanced season. It’s the time when day and night are about the same length.

Our emotions also tend to be in harmony in autumn: this season combines melancholy and happiness.

The Color of Tropics

Orange is especially common in the tropics; you can see it both in flora and fauna, high in the treetops and deep in the water. Birds, fish, corals, fruits, flowers, snakes, and butterflies – you name it.

An orange wedding dress is an ideal choice for a wedding in a tropical theme.

You will certainly look stunning sipping a Cosmopolitan in an orange dress on the sunset, even if this picture is merely associated with vacation than a wedding.

Since most Americans typically think of the tropics in relation to vacation, we can further draw associations with positivity, new experiences, happiness, and youth. All of these characteristics also perfectly align with the color orange.

Are Orange Wedding Dresses Traditional?

Orange isn’t the traditional wedding dress color in the U.S. We’re used to white, ivory, champagne, even blush pink, but certainly not flaming orange.

However, this color is quite common in Asian wedding dresses. For example, Indian brides often wear richly adorned traditional attires in orange color, as it has strong positive connotations in Indian culture.

Chinese and Pakistani women are also fond of bright orange wedding gowns. This youthful color reminds of sunshine and is associated with inner strength and God’s protection in both cultures.

In Nigeria, the orange color is among the hottest bridal fashion trends of the recent decade.

African brides have always been notorious for their love for colorful gowns, but orange seems to have taken a special place in their hearts.