I’m so excited to share all things wedding art, illustration and design with you. It feels a little like I had to hide a lot last year; I wanted our guests to be surprised by everything on the day and so knew I couldn’t post about them on social media. But there is much to show you…
Over the coming weeks I will walk you through the creation process in a step-by-step manner (vs trying to write it all in a novel length email). I hope that this also gives you the chance to respond or ask questions if you would like along the way.
let's get started
Gareth proposed to me on my birthday, 16th June 2020, smack bang in the middle of the first lockdown, before we we allowed to hug our friends and we were still hanging out in our families’ gardens. We went for a walk down near the river where we live and he asked me in a way that made me realise he must have practiced it a million times over on his head. Obviously I said yes.
We jumped into booking a venue pretty quickly. Many weddings had already been postponed and we knew we would need to get organised if we wanted to get married the following year. Our chosen date was based upon two things (well, two people): my sister’s partner being able to attend and my other sister’s best friend being able to be our photographer - both worked in the wedding industry at the time and so getting them there was going to be tricky. There was one date that matched up, 25th September 2021.
I could ramble on some more about how we went about choosing our venue and various other logistical bits and bobs, but really I think you’re here for the art. Just know, kind of like finding the perfect house, the perfect venue, the perfect wedding dress, everything… you just kind of know.
the art
The first place I started was with mood boards: lots of the them. I work pretty visually; I like to see everything laid out in from of me; to match texture and pattern and colour; it is how I make sense of things. I’d had a secret mood board of sorts going for years (thanks Pinterest) so really all I needed to do was begin to collate what I loved (20 year old me and 28 year old me has surprisingly similar taste). I’ve attached two of the mood boards below so you can see a little what this looked like for me. The first (left) was about figuring things out, whereas the second (right) solidly knew where it was going; both were useful.
Much of what you see in the first mood board was true of the day: we had long trestle tables, we didn’t have a colour scheme but instead chose for things to be colourFUL, my Dad and I arrived in a flower covered Landrover, and my sisters wore jewel coloured burgundy dresses… They were wonderful places to start and super helpful in giving us direction; having a play and accepting that ‘figuring things out’ sometimes might feel messy and that is okay.
I went on to create further mood boards and sketches for other aspects of the wedding too, but that will become more apparent as we move through.
In the next blog post we will talk about the creation of the ‘Save The Dates’ and the 'Quad-Fold' wedding invites.
Speak soon,
Georgina x