I like to go by the natural colors of fall leaves, starting with a butter yellow, matte gold, clementine, peach,orange, burnt orange,copper, rust and the medium brown (truffle or color of rich dark chocolate) to red, burgundy.
The prettiest colors I found when I checked out yahoo, which were already favs. were orange rust, burnt orange and truffle (the color of a rich dark chocolate milk) not too dark, not little
I will list some combos for fall, then other: Best to have three colors, two in same hue and a lighter or brighter accent color.
Truffle, orange and cream
Rust orange bm dresses with orange, cream and brown hypericum berries and the beautiful orange calla lillies, the mini callas make a beautiful, yet masculine bout.
Brown with apple green
Brown with aqua,teal or fuschia, bm pretty brown with aqua,teal or fuschia/pink sashes---many, many flowers to choose from***watch blues sometimes hard to pick flowers, but peaches and pinks go with both, fuschia is easy--many pinks and fuschias
Salmon (a coral color) peach and burnt orange or champagne
and to throw in one green---sage green only, others just don't work for me.
chocolate brown with burgundy--sounds terrible, but it is a very dramtic color combo, and some leaves do turn burgundy
mustard yellow or matte gold with purple and lilac bm in y/gold dresses with p and l flowers with a pinch of yellow for some splash
My favs are the brown or rust orange bm dresses.
Many flowers shown in orange, roses, calla lillies, lillies, alstromeria, dahlias, carnations, all types of mums at this time of year, they come in many colors and love the golden brown color and love spider mums, many, many.
I have the Pantone Wedding Color Swatch Set and if you go to this site and click on Pantone weddings and then there are about 4-6 squares of blue, click on this and a palette of colors will come you, you can click on any color and a bigger swatch will come up so that you can see the color better. http://www.dessy.com
The colors I liked from Pantone which is the biggie in wedding colors:
Creams-banana,cornsilk and ice yellow
Mustard/gold-mairgold
Oranges-tangerine (note more in the coral family), clementine(more in the orange family), and sunrise (a beautiful medium orange)
Rust-fiesta
Browns-almond, the latte, to me is too dark, the almond is like the color truffle
The no. 1 pantone color this year is honeysuckle pink, last year was turquoise, which brown dresses with either sash would be beautiful. But, for me, I prefer any blend of the fall colors and another reason is that there are so many natural colors you can use in decorations, gourds, mini pumpkins, straw, leaves, curly willow, etd.
A good site for many natural branches, etc. is http://www.save-on-crafts.com
Now, after having said all that, you can have any color you like, your favs. whatever, there is no etiquette rule that says you have to go by seasonal color, it just works for me. And the gourds, grasses, branches, the tall curly willow stems or stems of ting which are on the above site are more, how do I say, earthy, down to earth, as you say you are a non-girly, sporty type.
Also, go to this site http://www.teleflora.com the bouquets/centerpieces are alread made, but if you see one you like you can click on it to get a larger image and it usually tells names and colors of flowers. Also, in some of the orangey/brown/creamy bouquets a touch of lime green is added which is very popular and believe it or not looks good. The little lime buttons, the lime spider lillies and the lime cymbidium orchids with burgundy throats which would look great with burgundy dresses or chocolate dresses with a burgundy sash. Burgundy, rose and pink work well together.
The main thing to consider, however, is the florist. Check with her as to what is in season and what flowers she can get at this time of year.
This site http://www.mypersonalartist.com click on wedding colors and the first color combo featuring the new honysuckle pink is gorgeous, gives many other colors.
My choice would be truffle dresses, with orange/peach/a dot of yellow and cream for bouquets and second the burnt orange with orange/peach/a bit of purple for splash in bouquets.
Also on dessy site saw some great bm dresses, marigold persian plum, persimmon and a charcoal gray not to dark nor pale, yes, I thought when I click on this, yick, but what a nice surprise--would be different and oranges, peaches and creams would go great in bouquets. There is a small lacy looking leaf that comes in a pretty gray, called dusty miller which florists can sometimes get. T here are sites you can look at like http://www.fiftyflowers.com but again best to check with florist to see what she can get, some of the off the world colors are just not available. Hope this helps, get paint swatches and use for color combos or even children's 64 count crayons and a childs sketch pad and work wirh.JL