Abby and Ben, Melrose Market Studios, Seattle

Yawitz Wedding, Melrose Market Studios, Seattle, oil painting, 24 x 30

When I painted the holiday Jubilee at the WAC, I captured in the crowd a woman in a black and white chevron skirt. It was a bold print, and stood out clearly in the room, and in the painting. Someone recognized her in my scribbling, found her in another room at the party, and told her she was in my painting. She immediately came to see.

So, just a few months later, I painted her wedding.

Abby and Ben’s reception was at Melrose Market Studios, a renovated former grocery in a red brick and Douglas fir timbered 1927 building. This is classic Seattle.

It was a cozy family style affair, complete with darling blonde flower girls, dressed in white.

Flower girls and their mother, Yawitz Wedding (detail)

Painting A Las Vegas Valentine’s Day Wedding

-->

Many people come to Vegas to get married. Some people come to Vegas to live. This bride is a lifelong resident, and her groom altered his career to join her here.

Both wedding and reception were at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, on the strip.

As I left my hotel on my way to the Mandarin, someone in the elevator asked me if I was a magician. I was wearing a tux and bow tie, with my mustache waxed, and carrying an assortment of bags and boxes. I think I replied something like “well, my dog thinks I am.”  But when I arrived at the ballroom, I realized this day I was to be a magician.

The Robbins-Atkinson Wedding, Las Vegas

It is common in the wedding biz to have a ceremony in the same room as the reception, with the room “flipped” after the ceremony, during cocktails. The challenge at this one was a sliding wall dividing the ceremony end of the room from the dance floor end— with me on the end where I would eventually have a close view of the couple as they danced. But I could not see the end with the chuppuh, because of the wall. This was a first. But I have a maxim for overcoming impossibilities: there is always a way.

Event planner Andrea Eppolito had designed a breathtaking room, and I took some pictures for reference. But the part I need to paint first isn’t done well from photos: I always start with the lines and perspective of the room, as I see it from my easel. I bend the perspective a little, like a wide angle lens, especially in a long room such as this— and for an extra wide painting (this one is 24 by 40 inches). I establish this with the lines of the ceiling. Fortunately, the modern chandeliers were mirror images of each other at each end. I could transpose those in my head. But the real answer to seeing the lines came from drawings: specifically, the architectural plan of the room. I asked the designer for a printout of the room layout, and I taped it to my easel. I also did some perspective sketches from the other side of the dividing wall, and voilà, I was able to construct the room. Just like magic.

But the real magic of the evening was the beautiful couple, who dominate the painting.

Painting An Idaho Wedding

-->

Hayvez-Loseth Wedding, Lewiston Idaho, 2016. 24 x 36 inches.

The Lewiston-Clarkston valley

Usually when I travel to paint live at a wedding, it’s someplace that fits the stereotype of glamour— The Hamptons, Santa Barbara, Las Vegas, Cabo San Lucas, et cetera. But this trip was to one of my favorite places in the American West: Lewiston,Idaho. When Lewis and Clark first came over the Continental Divide and down Lolo Pass, they met the Snake River here at it’s confluence with the Clearwater; they then traveled the Snake to the Columbia and the Pacific Ocean.

Detail: the Couple

 I grew up about 35 miles north by northwest from here, so it was like going home. (In fact, I did go home, too). Every summer of my childhood, every weekend, we drove down the old Lewiston Grade (now called the Spiral Highway) to this beautiful valley, and then up the Snake River to Buffalo Eddy, in Hell’s Canyon, to swim and canoe.

This bride and groom were friends of friends from my home town, so I gave them my hometown discount.

It was a delight to talk, as I painted, to an eleven year old girl about her 4-H project, raising a pig. It was amusing to be outbearded by several men in the room. And the food was the best home style cooking you’ll never find in some chef-catered ballroom on the coasts.

And although it was the second of January, I even found time to swim in the river.

Detail: An essential component of every painting: Extended Family.

A Soldier’s Wedding at Newcastle Country Club

-->

Svore-Broemmel Wedding, Newcastle Country Club, Washington, oil on canvas, 24 x 24 inches, by Sam Day

I’ve done several wedding paintings at this venue, a tournament-caliber golf course and county club. Perched on a hilltop roughly a thousand feet above Puget Sound, the clubhouse has peerless views of Seattle, Lake Washington, Bellevue, and other suburbs. It’s a grand view, even on a windy, rainy winter night. The lights of the cities below glitter through the storm clouds as they rise up the hills.

Detail, Svore-Broemmel Wedding Painting by Sam Day

The lap of the 44,000 square foot clubhouse is called Prestwick Terrace, which is, of course, a terrace designed to showcase this magnificent view. And on that terrace is a capacious and permanent event tent, graciously pumped full of heat for this holiday fête.

 The décor was decidedly winter, with a towering Christmas tree and white lights.

The groom was a graduate of West Point, and a decorated Army Ranger. He wore his dress blues, and cut the cake with his saber. Although I pride myself on painting couples from life, this time I took a picture—a close up— of the decorations his chest, so I could represent them correctly. His equally accomplished bride had one request— the addition of her West Highland Terrier, who was not present. It was a small thing to ask, and a thing I’ve done before.

Other figures appear cryptic, but recognizable, and individuals were delighted to find that they had “made [it into] the painting.”