And so, after weeks of sketching and stressing (and a little bit of avoidance on my part...) the big day is here and my contribution is finally finished!
I should probably start from the beginning...
Back in May, my dear friend Emily asked me to create a board that would welcome guests to her wedding reception. I had originally planned to create a print for her and her fiancé Calum based around how the early years of their relationship by pulling in some Shakespeare references, but being asked to create their welcome board was an incredibly special thing, so there was no way I could refuse!
The most difficult part for me was working out the composition of the whole piece and the order of their names. How do I decide who goes first? Is there a rule with this sort of thing that I should know about!? I ended up choosing to arrange them alphabetically to avoid choosing sides. Quite glad I did actually, the final composition looks good.
I looked at the recently revisited Peace and Light print I did a few months ago for ways in which I could place the two names. I was also torn between the word "and" or incorporating an ornate ampersand within the flourishes, but after trying several variations with a lovely looking ampersand I decided to ditch it because there was enough space between Calum and Emily for a small "and" to be placed without being too distracting.
Left to right, top to bottom: initial letterforms drawn out, Spencerian weight variation added, floral decor on test print and the final print with gold detailing.
In the wild at the Wroxeter Hotel
I have this habit of over complicating stuff, and I didn't really want to work too much into this design and "spoil" it. My standards are high as they are, but this print will be my first with such a large viewing audience. I didn't want it to be really busy. I've striped it all down to just the basics; a short welcome message, the happy couples names and the date of the union.
For the final, I chose to work with some of the colours on the wedding invite as I wasn't given a colour scheme to work to (for those of you that follow my Instagram feed, I've been posting photos of different colour schemes I've tested). The photograph above shows a small glimpse of one scheme I decided on. There was another that involved much cooler colours, but I wasn't keen on how off my registration was with the gold detailing, and I couldn't give Emily something I was happy with!