Escort Cards and Seating Chart

I received pictures of an escort card order I completely recently for an etsy customer. (I feel the need to point out that I worked with an actual GROOM this time - which I think is great!) I've only worked with a handful of grooms, EVER.


The lettering style was "Penman" a loopy Copperplate with deeply shaded capitals and almost monoline minuscules. I custom mixed a dark plum color to coordinate with the wedding colors, and added a simple gold flower swirl to add depth.

These escort cards had the table no. written inside of the fold, but it is also standard to write the table number below each name. As an alternative to indicate seating arrangements, you can use a seating chart like this one I created for a "Autumn themed" wedding.

Close up of upper right corner:

Digital Fun

I used to like this picture just the way it was. Sure, I already had way too much lipstick on, and it's a little painful to see myself making it even darker, but hey, I was nervous, and dark liner was in style in '99.

But to the point.... I love enhancing and modifying photos with my digital software. I thought it would be fun to show a couple of different ways to edit this photo for some effects.

Much more interesting this way, I think. First, everything was converted to b/w. I masked out my reflection, then blurred the rest of the picture. Final touches were to take the paint brush tool and loosely outline the photo for a dreamy, old-photo effect.


This was similar to the prior photo in that my reflection was masked out, but instead of turning the entire photo b/w, I only converted the inverse selection. Obviously. I also did the blur effect on the background... in general, a great way to get rid of undesirable background images, or to at least discourage the eye from looking at them... in this case the yucky wallpaper! I then added a soft black border. Kinda gives it an old film look... yes?


And lastly, my favorite! I brightened the picture, turned to sepia, opacity changed to about 50%. I then added a rectangle under the photo with a "grid" pattern and turned that yellow for the ivory color to come through. The flowers were pen/ink sketches which were scanned in and imported.

This is just for fun, now back to work....

Wedding Place Cards

I recently addressed place cards for this elegant New York wedding. The lovely bride, Michelle, was not only a pleasure to work with, but has, in my opinion, impeccable taste. The warm yet subdued color schemes, exquisite china, and romantic setting were perfect.
She chose my "Flourished Copperplate" lettering style for the envelope addressing, escort & place card addressing, and table cards.

Photos courtesy of Philipe Cheng Photography.