Contributor Arielle Worona: Artful Moments From My Wedding Day

I’m always so excited to share my favorite wedding day moments (as you can probably tell from my plentiful wedding posts on my blog!).

As a fashion illustrator, I relished the opportunity to explore creative and beautiful ways to add artful touches throughout our wedding. With the help of Paintru, I was able to immortalize some of these moments.

Having fondly trawled through memory lane, here are some of my favorite artful wedding moments, which, even over a year on, ignite the most cherished memories.

A Vintage Rehearsal Dinner Dress

The night before our wedding, my husband’s parents threw us the most beautiful, intimate rehearsal dinner for our wedding party and immediate families.

""When I first heard that our rehearsal dinner would be taking place at an adorable Italian restaurant on the water in Westlake Village, I knew I wanted to wear something special. I asked my mom if I could try on her wedding gown a few months back and although it had some pretty crazy 80’s sleeves, I fell in love with its lace, its train and how whimsical its vintage fabric was.""

I asked my mom if I could revamp her gown for our rehearsal dinner and I was really excited when she gave me the go-ahead. I started imagining what I wanted the final dress to look like and decided to get right to it.

I worked with the amazing Loyce of LA’s Grace Bridal Couture, who makes wedding gowns from scratch but who also specializes in helping brides to revamp heirloom gowns for their own weddings. I drew out what I was hoping to accomplish (I decided I wanted to modernize my mom’s gown by removing the sleeves and it also needed some alterations). I took some fun sewing classes to better understand the sewing process and Loyce ended up creating the perfect dress; I absolutely love how the dress turned out!

My artful wedding tip #1:

Enjoy planning (or designing) what you will wear for the events around the Big Day itself. It may seem like a lot to take on (your wedding dress is bound to be your priority!), but the tertiary events also attract a lot of photo opportunities, so you want to be looking - and feeling - fabulous!

The ‘Princess Wedding Moment’ Photo

As our wedding photos started to trickle in, we could not have been more excited! One of my favorites is one of Phil and I right before sunset because every time I look at it, it helps me to relive one of the happiest moments of our lives. Our photographer, Katrina Jayne captured this moment so beautifully and we really did feel like we had stepped right into a fairy-tale. I wish we could have stayed in this perfectly-lit, storybook forest forever.

In order to nail photos in light like this, our photographer captured us looking towards the sun during “golden hour”–when the sun was in the perfect position and the lighting was nice and soft.

At first, we weren’t sure we wanted to take these extra photos during our wedding because there’s only so much time you get to enjoy all of the people who have come to see you from near and far.

That said, our photographer promised that these photos would not take long so we went for it. I highly recommend trying to nail some on your special day because they ended up being so priceless. 

My artful wedding tip: Give yourselves time to savor the magic of photographs. Remember: you have hired a photographer due to their professional insights and vision - so make the most of their talents!

It’s also well worth noting that a beautiful wedding snap can be transformed into a beautiful piece of unique art by the Paintru team, like the example below. This could hung on your wall and cherished forever, and you also have the opportunity to direct style and color scheme!

Wedding Ceremony Blooms

Early on, I also knew that I wanted to tie in sentimental elements to my bridal bouquet in particular. We wrapped the beautiful pink peonies, anemones, roses and succulents in a piece of my mother’s wedding gown and in my maternal grandmother’s wedding gloves. Then we held everything together with a vintage broach from my paternal grandmother. I also wore vintage earrings from my husband’s step mom and a charm bracelet from both sets of my grandparents that I’ve had since I was 13.

When I walked down the aisle, I felt like I was holding little pieces of my family (and new family) with me and that in itself was really meaningful. I’m so thankful that our amazing florist nailed exactly the look we were going for. I only wish all of our flowers could have stayed this beautiful forever.

A lovely touch was commissioning my bouquet to be turned into a piece of fine art by paintru.com. I opted for a watercolor piece to give the painting a mellow, ethereal feel. Every time I look at this artwork, I am transported back to walking up the aisle!

My artful wedding tip: Some of the most beautiful elements of a wedding are perishable, like flowers and the cake. I really recommend not only getting lots of wonderful photographs of these pieces, but also making them a permanent fixture in your home by transporting them onto a canvas...like I did with my bouquet!

Arielle Worona is a Los Angeles-based, New York-raised dreamer, content creator, fashion illustrator, style-lover and mama to Naiya Lennon and Sadie Amélie. She says, “I should have known that the girl who loved doodling in notebooks, scrapbooking to a fault and running a handmade greeting card company out of my parents basement would fall in love with #girlbossing and blogging someday. My mission? To share style inspo, authentic stories about motherhood and to connect with other multi-passionate women in hopes that we can lift each other up and together, find our village.”