Wedding Stationery -
Thomas and Anjalee, 2019
2019 - watercolour, ink pen
In the summer of 2017 my brother proposed to his girlfriend. To everyone's delight she said yes, and the next year they asked me to design their wedding stationery. This was a new and exciting experience for me, as this was my first time designing wedding stationery, and indeed they didn't want just any typical design, as they wanted it to reflect the nature of the wedding, or rather, weddings.
My brother is Christian, and my now sister-in-law from a Hindu family, and so they decided to have two wedding ceremonies to fully respect the traditions from both religions. I suggested an architectural frame to surround the text, as the English and Indian forms of the religions have distinctive architectural styles.
I was inspired by the colourful, detailed yet stylised illustrations of Matthew Rice, and together with flowers from India and England (jasmine and lotus, and roses, peonies, and eucalyptus respectively) I envisioned the flexibility these forms would have for the various stationery elements they required.
I created the different 'elements' on one piece of card, with watercolour and pen, which I then scanned in and had as a digital asset to edit and rearrange on Adobe Photoshop and compile on InDesign.
Being from a Christian background myself I felt comfortable with the vocabulary of ecclesiastical architecture and so designed an ogee arch from my imagination. Being less familiar with elements of Hindu architecture, I based this section on the very temple they would be married in a year later, the Shri Vallabh Nidhi Mandir in Wembley. Not all the guests would be invited to both ceremonies, and so three base designs were required: a wholly Christian design, a wholly Hindu one, and one that combined them, as was my original thought. I created the 'Save the Date' first, after which the invitations went through several incarnations before the final design.
I created the different 'elements' on one piece of card, with watercolour and pen, which I then scanned in and had as a digital asset to edit and rearrange on Adobe Photoshop and compile on InDesign.
Being from a Christian background myself I felt comfortable with the vocabulary of ecclesiastical architecture and so designed an ogee arch from my imagination. Being less familiar with elements of Hindu architecture, I based this section on the very temple they would be married in a year later, the Shri Vallabh Nidhi Mandir in Wembley. Not all the guests would be invited to both ceremonies, and so three base designs were required: a wholly Christian design, a wholly Hindu one, and one that combined them, as was my original thought. I created the 'Save the Date' first, after which the invitations went through several incarnations before the final design.
