This past weekend I had the honor of being in the wedding party of two longtime friends of mine, Nichole and Joe. These two have been together over nine years and I have never seen them happier! Their wedding day was a huge summer celebration, complete with s’mores, a stretch limo, a rockabilly band, and fireworks to round out the evening.
As my gift to the couple, I created a custom guest book based on a design, color scheme, and group of fonts that they chose.
The book structure is a Japanese stab binding made from 1/8″ thick book board.
I tore the pages from white Canson Mi-Teintes paper, which is a very popular and receptive paper for anything from pencil, ink, watercolors or charcoal. For added stability in the spine, I first sewed the pages with a kettle stitch before completing the stab binding.
The entire book is covered with navy blue shantung fabric, which I adhered to a thinner rice paper first using Heat n’ Bond. It has a slight grain and texture to it similar to dupioni silk. I used a silvery grey ribbon to complete the stab binding through holes drilled all the way through the pages and book board. Keeping it simple, I tied off the ribbon with a small knot.
A few details were added, including the text “With this ring I thee wed” taken from their wedding invitations. The final addition was the name card on the cover.
It was truly a celebration of love, with so many friends and family coming together to make it possible. Here’s a quick shot I capture right at the end of the evening. Does it get any more romantic than this?! Congratulations you two!
