2026 Pantone Color of the Year: Cloud Dancer

Shortly after our Special Moments Event Planning team posted our last blog, “2026 Wedding Trends,” Pantone, the color gurus, shared their 2026 Color of the Year.

Their selection for 2026 is Cloud Dancer. 

 

 

 

They describe this color as:

Cloud Dancer lifts us to lofty heights where this diaphanous white breaks through gray skies, revealing clear, breezy blues under a misted sunlight. Aqueous blue-greens emanate from the watery depths.

 

Weddings Gone Wild

Of course, immediately after the color’s release, the wedding world went wild. Saying things like ‘it’s just white’, ‘boring’, and ‘what were they thinking?’

Some planners and decorators, or ourselves included, took a different approach, looking at this soft, slightly offwhite color as an incredible base to build designs on.

 

Nice Day for a White Wedding

Yes, everything old is new again, especially in the world of weddings. And somehow, white weddings will never go out of fashion.

White weddings have changed a lot over the years, primarily due to the textures of the details incorporated into the design. A white wedding can be soft, flowing, and almost Victorian in styling or stark and contemporary.

Much of how this color is used depends on the textures of table linens, the chairs, and charger plates, table numbers, and floral vessels incorporated into the tabletop, and even the selection of flowers.

With that said, Cloud Dancer, a slightly off white color, works exceptionally well in places where a more yellow tone, ecru, or ivory has been used in the past.

 

Beautiful Beach Weddings

For our Special Moments Event Planning team, which works with many couples planning beach or beach-vibe weddings. This color fits right in!

In some of their color stories, Pantone showcases Cloud Dancer with a palette of soft, almost pastel colors. These range from light blues to soft corals and even colors slightly reminiscent of sea foam.

 

 

While their names are different, they are similar to soft beachy tones that we’ve seen here in Tampa Bay weddings over the last few years.

 

Dare To Be Bold

Don’t get us wrong, we love the uses of Cloud Dancer in white weddings and with softer palettes. 

But we also know that this white, with slight grey undertones, is similar to oyster. It is a white color with a slight grey-green undertone. The beauty of that color was that it looked different under different lighting conditions.

With soft layers of candlelight, we could see Cloud Dancer paired with beautiful slate, grey, and charcoal colors. Pair it with silver tones, pewter, and white flowers for a very modern look.

On the flipside, Cloud Dancer could be a quiet breakup in a wedding design with more jewel-toned colors for a darker, richer, warmer feel.

Whatever your wedding vibe, the Pantone 2026 Color of the Year, Cloud Dancer, is actually very versatile and a quiet break in a busy world.