Caricatures at A Purple Wedding on a Wednesday

"Youre so lucky I married you"

————————————————————

I am setting up my easel for a wedding in a backyard in Pensacola Florida.

The wedding is being held behind a split-level house in front of a small pond surrounded by cypress trees. It is sunset, the golden hour, and it’s like something out of a southern Alabama dream.

I set up my easel to draw caricatures and take a few pictures and wait, camera in hand, for the bride to make her entrance.

I’m never sure what to expect when I come to weddings. I usually get hired over the phone and so I don’t know what my brides look like until I meet them. Generally, I don’t even know how old they are.

Often, I find myself drawing caricatures at a second wedding for brides who have been married before and just want to have a fun party with some close friends to celebrate.

That is the case here. This is a smallish wedding of probably about 40 to 50 people. Many of them are family. Some are close friends.

We are all waiting for the bride to appear. The music stops. I wait, holding my breath. Finally, The Bride comes out of the house and steps onto the deck.

The first thing I notice about the bride is that she has purple hair. This isn’t too surprising since she is getting married on a Wednesday, and I can already tell from that that she is a different kind of person.

Which is exactly the kind of Client that I love the most. Artsy. Creative. Independent thinker. Just like me 😊

Ashley, the bride, reminds me of a mermaid with her purple hair and her starfish earrings and matching necklace and her form-fitting dress that flares at the bottom (known as a mermaid style dress just in case you didn't know).

Ashley sees me and greets me with a hug, saying she is so glad to finally meet me. I'm stunned mute by how beautiful she is.

The walk down the aisle music began to play, it's a solo violinist playing classical music, beautiful and haunting, the notes trembling and floating over the cypress pond like butterflies.

Ashley excuses herself to walk down the aisle.

I watch from my caricature stand some 200 feet away. I can hear and see the ceremony, which for me is the best part. I’m a romantic at heart and I just love being able to see the wedding ceremony itself. I’m always still a little surprised that they still make me cry. This one is no exception.

A family member is officiating this wedding and he ducks his head and says, “This is my first wedding, so please forgive me if I mess up,“ and we all laugh, gently. I am not too surprised when, a few minutes in, the maid of honor has to make a run for the house in the middle of the ceremony to get the vows which have accidentally been left behind.

No one seems to mind. I loved that Ashley, the bride, is laid back enough to let things like that slide and not upset her.

One of the pieces of advice I like to give new brides is a piece of advice that was given to me on my wedding day, which is this:

Basically, don’t sweat the small stuff.

You can’t control it if bad things happen on your wedding day. Things will happen. It’s all about your attitude, and it’s still gonna be the best day of your life, so you might as well have a good attitude about it and not let little things ruin it.

Ashley did, absolutely.

After the ceremony, I begin drawing the children first. No particular reason except perhaps that they sometimes have less inhibitions than adults.

The bride's son, who is 17, is one of the first people to be drawn. He tells me that he had personally filled clear beach balls with LED lights, sealed them so no pond water could get into them, and had gone out onto the pond in a rowboat and had placed them individually on the water. He kept them from floating away by attaching them to fishing wire and then lowering them Into the water with a sinker at the end of each one. I thought, what a great kid.

The bride's handsome young son

It is a delightful wedding filled with fun & quirky people - I noticed Bigfoot was hand painted on the tailgate of a truck when I pulled up - and it's very intimate. I feel like I get to know all the guests as I draw them, which I often do, and I make friends with all of them.

After a little while of me sitting outside and drawing, I realize that the action has all moved inside, so I approach the bride and asked her if it's OK to move inside, and she says, Of course. This does happen occasionally at weddings and it only takes a few minutes to move, but it really does make a difference where I’m located. I need to be near where the people are - like the little mermaid - so that everyone can watch and enjoy.

I recently went to an event in downtown Pensacola called Gallery Night, and there was a caricature artist sitting there drawing.  He didn’t have his art facing the audience so they couldn't watch him.

I wondered why.

To me, having people watch is the entertainment portion of caricatures. Guests are not just getting a favor. They’re also being entertained.

My late husband, buddy (also a caricaturist) taught me that you need to put on a show.

And so I work on much larger paper than any other Caricaturist around - twice as big in fact, 18 x 12 - so that people can see from relatively far away.

I also talk to each of my sitters as I draw them. I introduce myself to put each customer at ease, give them instructions, and then we talk and joke around as I draw them.

Sometimes I will have a group of people come behind me and make smart comments, such as “why did you give her a mustache” or “his face isn’t green” ( it’s always green by the way, for some reason. Don’t ask me why) and very occasionally I will have somebody say “I could do that” in which case I turn to them and pretend to hand them my marker which always results in them backing off - and a laugh from the crowd.

 My point is that the show is an important part of the evening's entertainment.

People like to stand behind me and watch the drawing unfold in just a matter of a few minutes, and it is that that encourages introverts to sit in my chair, which is also a big reason why people who would never have gotten drawn by anyone else often let me draw them.

In fact, there was a lady at this very wedding who, at the beginning, said no, she’s not gonna get drawn, who eventually sat down in my chair for a sketch.

That’s probably because I draw flattering caricatures that people are proud to have and hang in their homes, which is exactly what you want for a wedding favor - and that is exactly why I am the Gulf Coast area’s premier wedding caricature artist.

About 2/3 of the way through the evening, I finally get to draw Ashley and Ray.

Ashley sits down and is happy to have a breather. The bride and groom often need that few minutes to reconnect and regroup. I give them space.

Ashley turns to me and says that that she had been seeing me on Facebook for over a year but hadn't actually followed me, and she and Ray had been together for six years, and when he finally proposed in January, they decided to just hurry up and get married already, so they set the wedding for April.

4 months is not a long time to plan a wedding (nor to save up for one), and Ashley literally only found me again and contacted me two weeks before the wedding. (A VERY good reason to join my site!)

It’s true that I do most of my weddings on Saturdays. Sometimes Fridays, and sometimes even Sundays, so I’m usually booked on weekends.

However, I do a lot of corporate events during the week too, so it was completely possible that I would’ve been booked, but I wasn’t. And so I got to do this wonderful Purple Wedding on a Wednesday, full of quirky artsy people.

Ashley and Ray are just a mom and dad who really wanted to get married, who didn’t have a huge amount of funds, so they got married on a Wednesday to keep prices down. I think that’s a great option, especially if you’re a Creative & Unique like Ashley & Ray.

Ashley told me herself that she wanted to be different. She didn’t want to do the same thing that everybody else was doing for her wedding and if you’re that kind of a bride, if you’re unusual, unique, adventurous, spirited, and fun, then wedding caricatures might just be for you.

And if you really want them, but you can’t afford them, or if you feel that way about your whole wedding, you might consider having it on a different day.

I was able to give Ashley a discount because her wedding wasn’t on a Saturday, which is a prime day for me. Saturdays are when I make my bread and butter because this is my real job. I have to protect my calendar in order to keep a roof over my family‘s head. I have to reserve them for larger events.

But if you have your wedding on a Friday night, which isn’t that unusual, or on a Sunday afternoon or evening, also not that unusual, I might be more available - AND I may be able to charge you less.

It helped that otherwise, Ashely was my ideal client. She was super nice about everything and that made me WANT to work with her.

Also if you are a veteran or service man or woman, I do give discounts and if you’re not having a wedding, but you’re having some other sort of event, I also give discounts to nonprofits, including schools and churches.

I want to be able to help you. I want you to be able to have me at your wedding or other event.

If you really have your heart set on it, work with me, and we can make it work like I did with Ashley. The mermaid bride with the purple hair who got married on a Wednesday.

Because she asked, and specifically because she got married on a Wednesday, she was able to afford me.

I was the one splurge she had for her wedding.

I’m honored she chose to make that splurge be me and my wedding caricatures.

and they lived happily ever after

So they danced the night away, and we did the whole "fake exit" with the sparklers. Eventually, they left in a getaway car, and I went home to get some sleep

And we all lived happily ever after

Here's the review Ashley gave me on Zola:

Thanks so much Ashley!

---

Hi, my name is Kathy Buskett & I'm the premier caricature artist in the Gulf Coast area.

I'm known for my flattering drawings that actually look like the people being drawn, as well as my speed, which is 2-3 times faster than the average caricaturist.

This is IMPORTANT because it keeps lines down, your guests happy, and cuts your price per person in HALF.

If you would like me to come to your wedding, corporate event, or other part,y such as quinceañeras, bar and bat mitzvahs, and more, contact me now to see if your date is available.

But hurry! There's only so many dates on the calendar and I book up quickly!

See If My Date Is Available