In the Business of Love: Working in the Wedding Industry as a Graphic Designer

Every design student has, at one point in their early education, been asked what they intend to do with their degree and had absolutely no clue how to answer.

Truth is, most students enter Graphic Design programs with an incredibly amorphous idea of what a career in design truly looks like; that’s certainly how I entered my degree path. Design is seen as the practical choice for young artists seeking a stable career, without any idea of how many forms a career in the arts can take. 

Many of my professors within my design program ran their own business in the arts in addition to teaching at the university, and I was lucky enough to be mentored by one who owns a stationery business. I took letterpress as an elective under her supervision, and it was love at first print. She taught me almost everything I know: How to operate cylinder and platen presses, embossing vs debossing, preparing files to get the best print results, and how to source the exact right paper for projects.

I knew almost instantly I had found my passion, but I wasn’t entirely sure where it fit into my future– or what that future looked like.

Particularly in the age of AI, everyone echoes the sentiment that the digital medium is the key to success as a designer. It was hard to imagine a career that didn’t revolve entirely around Slack chats and delivering .zip files, so I did everything in my power to verse myself in anything related to web design. I learned to code, read The Design of Everyday Things, researched how to gamify SEO to make my sites visible, and did my BFA thesis on the women who played critical roles in the building of the internet. 

In the end, I realized I sought greater client connection than a strictly web-based career path offered. In branding, I want to develop designs that create a tangible and community-centered impact for small businesses. In letterpress stationery, I wanted to create art that was an heirloom– not a small cog in a megacorporation’s marketing machine. 

My breadth of knowledge in web hasn’t been put to waste, however.

Because of that experience, I’m able to present my branding clients with more than just design– I’m able to give them digital strategy to make the most of their assets. I now have a perspective on digital marketing that a lot of my industry peers don’t. Every ounce of my experience informs how I move forward in marketing my business and developing the identities of others’.

Strangely, it didn’t occur to me to follow my professor’s lead and enter the wedding industry until she explicitly suggested it to me.

Even then, I didn’t exactly have a lightbulb moment. It felt daring enough to work in the arts in any capacity. The thought of working in a luxury sector seemed frivolous at first, almost gluttonous to dive into as a recent graduate.  

As I began to think through what a career in the wedding industry in graphic design would look like, it quickly occurred to me that it would contain everything I love about design. Authentic client connection, making work that’s as exciting as it is beautiful, working in traditional and digital mediums, letterpress, and engaging with my community, Tampa Bay, on a deeper level.

Working with fellow wedding industry creatives, such as photographers and content creators, to develop their brand in addition to working with stationery clients to create the wedding invitation of their dreams is by far the most rewarding direction my career could’ve gone.

Design centered around celebration brings me exactly much joy as you’d expect.