We always love when we hear from one of our wedding coordinator friends who reaches out to work with us on a special wedding project.  In this case, I had been communicating with the bride, Amy, about designing and printing the wedding program with the painting of St. Ann's Church on the cover.  Soon after this, I got a call from Kate Martin from Beautiful Days about creating all of the other wedding day paper goods for this couple!

Naturally, I was delighted.  It is always fun to work on Kennebunkport weddings since I grew up in Kennebunk and am so familiar with southern Maine!  It is a stunning area where so many couples start their married life together.  Although Amy and Ron had found their invitations elsewhere, there were a number of items that were needed for the wedding day.  It was fun to design and paint all of their wedding day details.

This film was created by Meg Simone, our favorite videographer and great friend!  It shows our custom details, and how they fit in with the spectacular flowers and table decor done by Beautiful Days for this elegant tented wedding by the sea.

There were so many details we wanted to highlight, that we had our own photos taken by our talented photographer friend, Rachel Halsey, so you could see even more special pieces and the care that went into each one. 

The map booklet for the welcome bag was our first item on the list of one of a kind details.  Kennebunkport has so many beautiful coves and views.  We wanted to capture the couple's favorite places, so this started with a custom map.  The map included all the wedding weekend event locations and (of course) their sweet pup, Ellie. The cover page was a hand painted map, followed by the detailed schedule of events on page 2. I took some of the location illustrations from the map and used those to denote the fun weekend events.  My favorite illustration on this page was of the couple riding away with Ellie in the back of the car-just married!!   The third page was  the transportation page with a trolley illustration at the top, and the back page gave the visitors to Kennebunkport some favorite places recommended by Amy and Ron for their weekend visit to this beautiful town.

For the wedding day, there were so many other unique details. The first of these was the ceremony program with a painting of St. Ann's Church. The ceremony program also had a ribbon tied up the side for a pop of navy.

The menu was by far my favorite piece to paint and design.  The year before I had done a bold veggies menu for one of our couples, so I already had a few ideas when embarking on this special project.  The menu had paintings of veggies, lobster, and even wedding cake.  Instead of using one of my custom fonts, I hand lettered the menu items in watercolor calligraphy line by line-especially for this couple.  Then the most special touch was the guest name hand written in calligraphy at the top.

Funny coincidence! When I was going through the names, one of them seemed familiar to me so I asked Amy about it!  It turns out that the woman was a former teacher of Amy's from grade school...and I had created a custom map for her as a gift years ago. Small world!  :)

The menus were not the only special detail with hand calligraphy. The escort cards were lettered on small envelopes to be displayed in the stunning floral arrangements. When the guests opened up the envelope, their seating assignment was inside.  The table numbers were also lettered by hand. I actually used a large paintbrush to get the swooping calligraphy as were on the menus.

This stunning wedding was so rich in lovely details! Thank you, Meg Simone, for sharing that beautiful video with all of our paper items! And thank you, Kate Martin of Beautiful Days. You have such a great eye and I appreciate you trusting me with these wedding details.  And the biggest thank you to Amy and Ron, for letting us be a part of your day!  We loved how it all came together for you.  Wishing you both a lifetime of happiness!! 

Thank you, Amy, for your kind words.  I enjoyed working with you too!!:  

El was fantastic to work with throughout the wedding process. She was open and flexible and understood our vision instantly. People especially raved about the welcome bag note and map, and menu. Thank you! I look forward to working with El and her husband on another project. 
Amy Cestra

Videography: Meg Simone
Photography: Rachel Halsey
Planning and Decor: Beautiful Days
Cover Photo: David Murray
Photographs with barn wood: El :)