This highlight focuses on recent advances in controlling inter-nanoparticle coupling effects by template-assisted organization of colloidal particles. We show that the use of templates formed by wrinkling allows circumventing drawbacks of classical lithographic approaches for template formation like the large number of processing steps and poor scalability. Subsequently, we illustrate that confinement effects can be used for creating particle assemblies with excellent short and long range order. This allows controlling inter-particle coupling effects. As an example, we focus on plasmonic coupling in gold nanoparticle arrays. We demonstrate that these arrays can be applied to develop efficient and homogenous substrates for surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS).