Feng Shui is a very ancient practice that developed in China centuries ago. The underlying idea of feng shui is that the arrangement of items around a person can influence their success in life. The ideal arrangements allows the Qi (the flow of energy) to move smoothly around your environment.

Although feng shui has been practiced in Asia for a long time, the practice has only become popular in the United States in the last five to ten years. In fact, what once started off as a guide for building architecture and designing homes has now moved into the wedding scene, including wedding invitations.

Before you can apply feng shui principles to your wedding invitations, you need to understand some of the basic ideas behind this practice.

Basic Feng Shui Ideas

One important concept is to achieve balance between the yin and the yang. The yin and yang in feng shui represent opposites. The idea is to create equilibrium between the two extremes. In Chinese thought, all things represent one of those two extremes. For example, black, night, and female are all part of yin while white, day, and male are represented by yang. One way to achieve balance on your wedding invitations, for example, might be to choose a basic black and white color scheme with both colors equally represented on the invitation.

Another influential part of feng shui is understanding the five elements. In Chinese thought, there are five elements which also govern all of the parts of the world. Those elements are wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. These can be arranged in different cycles a cycle is the way the elements interact with one another. There are three cycles: Cycle of Production (fire, earth, metal, water, and wood), Cycle of Destruction (fire, metal, wood, earth, water), and Cycle of Reduction (fire, wood, water, metal, earth). The Cycle of Production is viewed as good while the Cycle of Destruction is not. The Cycle of Reduction is neither good nor bad.

You want to arrange your elements in order to avoid the Cycle of Destruction. All of the elements are associated with different traits and aspects of the world, such as directions. For wedding invitations, the most important characteristics you’ll want to be concerned with are colors. The colors associated with each element are as follows: wood is green, fire is red, earth is yellow, metal is white, and water is black.

One example of what you wouldn’t want to do is have a wedding invitation with a small spot of red surrounded by black. Because black represents water and because water destroys fire according to the Cycle of Destruction, this would not be a good combination. Instead, you might choose to blend red and yellow or black and yellow together.

Another important element of feng shui is the Bagua, or octagon. Each part of the octagon represents a different direction and a different aspect of your life, such as love or your career. Some feng shui practicioners expand the 8-sided Bagua into a 9-section square when they work in homes to help individuals plan their furnishings. Each section of the Bagua is associated with a different element and that color’s element should be represented in the appropriate section. For example, if you’re using a Bagua map on your invitations, then the northeastern corner represents love and relationships which is associated with earth and the color yellow. Having yellow in that part of your wedding invitation would be a good thing. On the other hand, you would not want to have green in that corner. Remember according to the Cycle of Destruction, wood destroys earth so having green (which is associated with wood) in a section governed by earth would create negative energy on your wedding invitations.

Your wedding invitations should not include straight lines if at all possible. Straight lines allow poison arrows known as shar to travel through them and to bring bad luck. You’re better off using curved designs instead.

Incorporating Feng Shui Elements in Invitations

Remembering all of these ideas can make designing your wedding invitations seem more complicated than it really is. What’s most important to remember is that you want to promote colors that signify a good mixing of the elements based on those cycles we mentioned earlier. You want to surround your colors with other colors that are going to be beneficial to them.

The yin and yang balance is also very important when choosing colors. Black and white are not the only colors associated with these ideas. In fact, most dark colors are connected to yang while their lighter versions are viewed as yin. Ideally, you could blend a dark blue with a light blue in equal amounts on your wedding invitation to achieve the balance you want.

On the other hand, different color combinations can bring about bad luck according to Chinese thought. Red and blue or green and yellow, for example, do not go well together and should be avoided. Remember not only to avoid these combinations on your invitations but also at your entire wedding. You should choose wedding colors that also represent a balance between the yin and the yang.

Feng Shui & Guest Seating

When you send your invitations, you may also want to consider including aisle assignments for your guests. That’s because you can diminish the negative energy of some of your guests simply by placing them in certain parts of the seating, at least according to feng shui principles. For example, if you have a water element – which you should – at your location, then seating the difficult person near that element is your best choice if you want to keep their negative influence from interfering with the positive flow of Qi.

If you’re serious about creating feng shui invitations, you could also consider hiring a practitioner to help you design your invitations and plan your wedding. Everything from the location of the ceremony and reception to the colors the bridesmaids should wear should be guided by these ideas if you want to create a truly harmonious and fortuitous atmosphere.