Marriage!

A great thing happened two weeks ago...I got married! Finally tied the knot with Robin Meyer, a wonderful girl I met, and started dating, my first semester of college. Our wedding was a giant project for everybody involved. I was stuck on design duty: the save the dates, the website, the invitations, stickers, labels, a ketubah, a chuppah, programs...you name it. A lot of work for sure, but the constant projects saved me from having to pick out napkins and stuff like that.

Let me start at the beginning, with the Save the Date:

This is a map of the country as we see it. Various places we've traveled to and lived in are highlighted. That's our venue up at the top.  

One of the best parts of the wedding (which stuck to the Jewish traditions) was our Chuppah -- the canopy under which the ceremony takes place. I designed the pattern, and my new mother-in-law quilted it all together with old family dresses (including a few generations of wedding dresses, and my wife's old prom dress). The design:

And the finished product, in action (can't see most of it, unfortunately, but hopefully you can get the idea -- here are the groomsman walking it down the aisle):

I designed the invitation to feature a picture of the venue, the Outdoor Art Club -- an awesome, old Arts-and-Crafts style building in the San Francisco area. In the end, I converted the drawing and text to a plate, which was beautifully letterpressed by Paper Boat Studios, in St. Louis.

Here's the invitation design:

The map:

I doubt anybody actually used this, thanks to Google Maps...but it was still fun to draw.

The entire suite (click to enlarge):

And here's the funky monogram sticker that sealed the envelopes shut:

There was also the matter of the Jewish marriage contract, called the ketubah. Here's the template -- the text was later calligraphed in (in very tiny, black letters) by our rabbi's wife. Beside it is the guestbook page, which all of our guests signed at the door.

   

The Hebrew words come from an old poem; they mean "I am my beloved's and beloved is mine." 

Then, there were the table cards. We recycled my illustrations that captured places which were somehow meaningful to our lives.

And finally, just when I thought I was off the hook...it was time to make invitations for our going away party. We will be moving to Amsterdam in a week! 

whew...