Your Ultimate Guide to finding the perfect Wedding Illustrator for YOUR day

As an experienced live event artist that collaborated with over 30 luxury brands and illustrated at corporate and brand activations for many years, I knew I had to bring this experience to weddings. Now, in most weekends, I illustrate live at weddings, creating elegant, hand-drawn, fashion-inspired portraits that guests can take home as a keepsake.

Photo credit: Marcel Van der Horst Photographer

 💃🏼 Fashion Sketches – Chic and stylish, focusing on guests' elegant outfits, wedding goes hand in hand with fashion as it's all about beautifully curated items and style
✏️ Quick Portraits – Focus more on guest's facial features in artist's style
🖋 Minimalist Line Art – Modern and timeless, focusing on expression, using thick and thin lines to represent the energy, look and feel of your guests

😊 Caricature – Playful and exaggerated, adding a fun, lighthearted element that make your guests laugh

🌿 Faceless Illustrations – A contemporary take, focusing on silhouettes and outfits rather than facial features.

💡 My Take: I personally love capturing elegant, fashion-inspired full body sketches that highlight each guest’s unique charm showing their facial details, as well as their outfit in confident strokes, as you know guests spent time and effort to look beautiful on your special day, why not celebrate that?  But no matter which artist style speaks to you, there’s an artist out there who can bring your vision to life!

2. What mediums do Live Wedding Illustrators use?

Different artists love to use different mediums, which affect the final look of the illustration. Here are some common ones:

🎨 Watercolour: Soft, elegant, and romantic with beautiful colour blending
✏ Markers: Vibrant and bold, ideal for capturing colours in outfits and it normally dry quickly
🖌 Digital Sketching (iPad/Tablet): It has the modern look, final sketch can be printed out instantly or airdrop to guest
🖊 Charcoal – Charcoal drawings are expressive with strong shading and contrast

💡 My Take: I use a mix of watercolour, markers and coloured pencil for my sketches because watercolour create expressive strokes, and markers provide high contrasts, I use different medium based on guests outfits, making each drawing feel refined and unique.

3. Can your wedding illustrator personalise the sketching paper

Ask your wedding illustrator if they can customise the illustration sketching paper to make it more unique to your wedding. Consider:

🖼 Custom backgrounds – Include your wedding monogram, date, venue sketch or furbabies
🌈 Color VS Black & White – Decide if you want coloured background or classic black
📜 Extra Luxe – Custom illustration paper with gold foiling 

💡 Personalisation Insight: I offer pre-printing of sketching paper, including wedding logo, your date and names or venue illustrations, or even other customisation at an additional cost, making the experience more tailored to your wedding theme.

4. Consider guests' experience

A live wedding illustrator isn’t just go to your venue to simply draw, they’re also entertaining your guests and their set up and painting style will form part of your decoration and aesthetic. Think about if their setup, tools and work habit will fit into your event flow and wedding theme.

👰 Small Weddings (30- 60 Guests): A illustrator can usually capture everyone or most of the guests. 
💍 Larger Weddings: Consider post-event illustrations or a second illustrator for a better guest experience

💡 My Take: If you want all or majority your guests to get an illustration, I offer after event service where I post the rest of the illustration to you within 2 weeks. I stick to this timeline straightly as I know you would be very excited to get your own sketch as a newlywed, and you would like your guests to get theirs asap when they are still very excited after attending your celebration. It could also fit in your schedule if you post thank you cards to your guests.

5. How to make the most of your Live Illustration Service

To ensure everything runs smoothly, here are some tips:

🔹 Provide a Comfortable Setup – A space with a larger table setup enhances the guest experience as the artist can display more sketches on the table as display
🔹 Create a Signage Board – Let guests know about the live sketching and how it works
🔹 Plan for Guest Flow – Decide if you want to have a VIP list to prioritise, or even de-prioritised (so the artist can post their sketches later) or a relaxed, first come first serve approach

💡 Tips: I often bring my own sign. A small sign or announcement from your MC at the beginning also helps guests know they can get illustrated!

6. Choose an Illustrator with experience

Not all illustrator specialised in weddings and events. A skilled illustrator with experience in a fast-paced, high-energy wedding setting would works best.

✅ Can they work quickly under pressure while maintaining high quality?

✅ Are they able to think on their feet to cater some ad hoc (but interesting) request?

✅ Have they worked at weddings or live events before? - Previous experience is always helpful

✅ Will their style make most guests feel flattering and happy receiving it? - You might be familiar with the style you picked but guests have only been introduced to this artist and their style the first time

💡 From My Experience: Weddings are full of movement, music, and fun. Throughout the years, I’ve learned how to sketch efficiently in more than one styles, keeping a high standard while making guests feel special, because the experience is as important as the artwork!

7. Common Myths About Live Wedding Illustration

❌ “Only small weddings can have live illustrators.” – With the right strategy (multiple artists or post-event sketches), large weddings can enjoy this service.
❌ “Guests have to sit still for a long time.” – We can take quick photos of the guests so it won't affect your wedding timeline
❌ “Only the couple gets drawn.” – Many couples book illustrators specifically for their guests, making it an interactive entertainment experience.

💡 Reality: I often sketch guests while they continue mingling or enjoying the event. Standing is not required! I also attended weddings that have 300 guests and I sketched 50 guests during the time. Live Wedding Illustration is an entertainment, your guests can still watch the process after the artist is fully booked, so it's totally okay. 

8. What happens after the wedding?

A good and organised illustrator ensures you receive everything smoothly post-event

📦 Post-Event Sketches Delivery – If some guests weren’t sketched, artists may complete and mail them afterward
🖼 Framing Options – Some artists offer framing or digital copies for keepsakes

💡 Post-Wedding Service: I offer digital copies of sketches by request, alternatively, my couples can include their own sketches in thank-you cards or wedding albums.

9. Secure Your Date Early

Live wedding illustration is one of the most sought-after live art experiences, and your favourite artist can usually only sketch in one wedding per day.

📆 Best time to book: 6-12 months before your wedding
🔍 Key questions to ask:

• What’s included in the package? How many hours can they sketch in weddings?

• How many guests can they normally illustrate during the wedding? Do they offer post-wedding sketches? 

• What is their workflow looks like? Some artists take a quick photo and draw from it, some artists prefer guests to sit down and draw from life

💡 My Booking Insight: I open my calendar 2 years in advance, and my most popular months tend to fill up quickly. I also limited my bookings to 40 weddings maximum each year so I can put my full attention to my couples. If you’re considering having me to sketch at your wedding, I’d love to chat early to secure your date!

10. Explore Additional Live Art Services

Your wedding, your way, if live wedding guests illustration might not suit you, there's other options to bring in live art elements to your special day.

🎨 Live Calligraphy – Elegant handwritten keepsakes for guests.
🍾 Live Bottle Painting – Custom-painted wine or fragrance bottles.
🔗 Live Engraving – Personalized glassware, perfume, or candles.

💡 What I Offer: I normally provides live art services at 60-70 events per year for luxury brands, corporate clients and wedding, I offer custom illustration as well as other live art experiences depends on the brief of my clients. I also provide live calligraphy, bottle painting, and engraving for couples who want something different.

If I'm being honest, live guest illustration or live bottle painting bring the most surprise, engaging elements to any events, even though it takes longer time for each items to complete among all live art services, it is the best investment that brings the biggest impact. As each artwork looks and paints differently, it makes the recipients feel extra special when getting it.