Anatomy of a Wedding Invitation

When I was told by Tara that I would be creating our invitations, I started thinking about making an illustration with us in it. I wanted something that would look like us and maybe be a little old fashioned. Something that you wouldn't normally see as a wedding invitation. I was very influenced by this illustration from Dicken's Christmas Carol. This was from the Fezziwig Christmas party that the Ghost of Christmas past brought Ebeneezer to. I really enjoyed the festive atmosphere and wanted to bring that to our wedding invitation. I was also curious about what I would look like in knee socks. I love the fiddler playing in the left corner. 

I started off with some simple sketches and even watched Gone with the Wind to see some dancing styles. I paused the DVD player a few times and tried to catch some dancing moves from that time period. This was the result. Then I noticed how much my butt stuck out. The two images below are without the background. B+W and color study. I wasn't crazy about the shadow cast over Tara's body in the color one, and although I like the idea of two people dancing alone, we were going to need some background friends. 

I changed the light source to the back of the image to take the shadow off the front of Tara. I added some fun dancers and even managed to keep the fiddler in the background. The couple to the left are Fezziwig and his wife.  I saw in Gone with the Wind some garlands that were used as streamers in a dance number, and I thought they would be useful to occupy the upper space in the image. I then did more color studies to get the right faded background that the Dickens' illustration had.  

These were the final images. You can see that the light source becomes more of a yellow tint. I darkened the bottom of the image and lightened more of the back. When we took it to the print shop, they cropped it with an oval shape. That became the final image. We complained that, after cropping, they had cut out the fiddler in the back. They took the piece back and moved the the fiddler, digitally, to fit. 

"A small matter, " said the Ghost, "to make these silly folks so full of gratitude. "
"Small!" echoed Scrooge. 
                                             -A Christmas Carol