The Wedding Album

Please excuse me if I seem a little overexcited in this post! There may be a slight picture overload but my photos caught every angle of this latest customised guest book well and I want to share all the details here.

The guest book / album went to a couple who got married at the beginning of November. Well, they were technically already married but were going to have a Jewish wedding ceremony standing under the chuppah after the groom converted to Judaism following their civil wedding a couple of years ago. They have a 2 year old son with curly blond hair and it was asked that I include him on the cover design as the invitation to the celebration was from him as well. All a little bit different to the more usual wedding imagery but there was a lot of material for me to work with!

The couple are both very interested in technology and were the first amongst their friends to use the social networking and micro blogging service Twitter, amongst other things. My original sketch showed only the groom holding a laptop but it was pointed out to me that the bride is very into technology too - they met at a Virtual Worlds Conference - so I switched the pose around a little and had them sharing the laptop with Twitter's homepage open on the screen. How very romantic! The bride is apparently a great cook and is particularly expert at making hummus, thus the chefs hat over her curly reddish hair, to match her white wedding dress and plate of hummus in her hand.

The groom works in IT (information technology) and is also quite a serious collectors of comics. I was delighted to discover various covers of vintage comics online that I remember from my childhood - particularly the Beano and Dandy - and pretty much assumed that these are typical of the comics that he collects. I have depicted him holding the laptop in one raised hand and clutching the comics in the other. He is wearing a suit and tie especially for the wedding and I picked out a pale purple tie because I was told that purple is the bride's favourite colour.

I tried my best to include all the couple's main hobbies and interests on the cover of the album. Embellishing a few of the inside pages allowed me to add a couple more. Unfortunately I was home alone when I photographed the album and had to get it in the mail pretty quickly so could not wait for assistance. Consequently my photos of some of the inside pages look a little strange to say the least because I did not want to fold them flat and risk creasing the pages. One page illustrated their love of  the art deco movement, whilst another showed the wedding chuppah again, along with a ketubah - the Jewish marriage contract that explains the basic material, conjugal and moral responsibilities of the husband to his wife. It is signed by the groom, as well as two witnesses, and given to the bride during the wedding ceremony. To your left you can also see the page that illustrates the couple's shared love of social media marketing (top), the bride's passion for cooking and entertaining (middle) and their commitment to their Jewish faith (bottom).

When everything was cut and placed exactly where I wanted it, all the hand cut lettering was added. The Hebrew at the top of the cover design says 'Mazal Tov', which literally means 'good luck' but the phrase is more often used to express 'congratulations' for a happy and significant occasion or event. Perfect for a wedding! 

I package my guest books/albums up in a matching presentation box and they are wrapped in tissue for safekeeping. Some of you might recognise my Moo cards (below), one of which I have used as a tag. Ordered quite some time ago, they still bring a smile to my face each and every time I use one!

The very last thing to do with this particular album was to wrap it in lots and lots of bubble wrap. It was travelling quite far! In fact I was beginning to get quite anxious when I had not heard of its arrival in the UK, only to discover that it reached its destination on the Friday morning before the Sunday wedding! Phew! That was cutting it a bit fine.

I am told that the album went down very well indeed and I received a wonderfully complimentary e-mail upon its arrival. The words "absolutely, extraordinarily gorgeous" were used. A good ending to a fun project.

If anyone is interested in ordering their very own guest book/album, there is now a listing for one in my shop.