Wedding, Engagement and Anniversary Paintings from Your Photos

We paint wedding, engagement and anniversary pictures by hand, on canvas, from the photos you already have. The first dance. The first look. The church, barn or vineyard where you got married. The trail where he asked. Your parents’ wedding photo from fifty years ago. There is no minimum order, so one painting is a normal order for us. Painting takes 7 to 10 business days for 1 to 5 pieces. We photograph the finished canvas and send you the photos, and nothing leaves our studio until you approve it.

What couples ask us to paint

The trigger is almost always the same. The photographer’s gallery link lands in your inbox, there are hundreds of photos in it, and three of them stop you. Those three are the ones people send us.

• The first dance. The most requested one by far. Warm light, a dark room, the two of you close together. It paints well in thick palette knife strokes, because the background is already meant to be a blur.
• The first look or the vows. Faces carry the whole picture here, so this one needs a photo where the faces are sharp and reasonably large in the frame.
• A portrait of the two of you. A posed golden hour shot, painted loose and impressionist or painted close to the photo. You tell us which.
• The venue. The church, the barn, the vineyard, the hotel ballroom, the garden, the registry office steps. With people in it or empty.
• The proposal spot. A bridge, a beach, a lookout, a kitchen. A rough phone photo works here, because we are painting a place, not a face.
• A parents’ or grandparents’ wedding photo. Usually small, faded and black and white. There is a section on those below.

One thing to be clear about up front. This is a studio, not a live event painting service. Nobody from our team comes to your wedding to paint while your guests watch. The painting happens afterwards, from photos, in Dafen Art Village in Longgang District, Shenzhen, China.

Your photo decides how the painting turns out

This is the part nobody tells you, so we will. A painter can only paint what is in the photo. If the faces are twelve pixels wide, no amount of skill puts them back.

Send the largest original file you have, straight from the photographer or straight off the phone. Not a screenshot. Not a download from Instagram, which strips most of the detail out. A photo where the two of you fill a good part of the frame will always paint better than a wide shot of the whole dance floor.

Dark reception photos are the common problem. We can lift the light and warm it up, but if the faces have no detail left in them, the painting becomes a mood piece rather than a likeness. We will tell you that before you commit, and we will usually ask if you have a second photo.

Fixes are possible too. Two or three photos can be combined into one composition, so you can borrow the good faces from one shot and the good pose from another. A stranger’s arm at the edge of the frame can come out, the sky can change, or the background can drop away entirely so we paint the two of you against color. Tell us the details a photo gets wrong, such as the dress being ivory rather than white, or his tie being deep green.

Who actually owns your wedding photos

Worth five minutes of your time before you order. In most countries the photographer owns the copyright in your wedding photos, even though you are the people standing in them. Paying for the shoot usually buys you the pictures to use and print, not the copyright itself. A painting made from a photo counts as a new work based on that photo.

Two related limits. We stay on the right side of copyright, so we paint only famous paintings that are in the public domain, meaning the artist died more than 70 years ago and the work was published before 1931. We do not copy living artists or other companies’ designs. And if your photographer wants the painting credited to their photograph, tell us, because that is between you and them.

Anniversary gifts, from the first year to the fiftieth

Anniversaries bring us a different kind of order. The first anniversary is paper in the United States and cotton in Britain, and a painted canvas of the wedding day is a common way to mark it. Twenty five is silver, fifty is gold, and those two are usually bought by adult children for their parents.

The classic fiftieth anniversary commission is an old black and white wedding photo painted in full color. Send us the best scan you can make of the original print, flat and in daylight, not a phone photo taken at an angle. Because the photo has no color in it, we need your notes. Was the dress ivory or bright white? Were the flowers cream roses or carnations? Was the uniform navy or black? Was her hair auburn? We paint from what you tell us and show you the result before anything ships. When the couple in that old photo is no longer here, the same kind of faded print also works for a memorial portrait.

If you want a color matched to something real, such as a fabric swatch or a paint code, we mix it and send you a photo of the mixed color under daylight for your approval before we paint.

Working back from the date

Almost every wedding and anniversary order has a date attached to it, so start from the date and count backwards.

1. Step 1 Send the photo, the size you want, the finish you want and the date you need it in hand. WhatsApp replies are usually immediate; email replies usually arrive within 12 hours.
2. Step 2 We confirm the piece and quote it. Freight is quoted separately at cost and we do not add to it.
3. Step 3 We paint. That is 7 to 10 business days for 1 to 5 pieces. For a commission we send progress photos while it is on the easel.
4. Step 4 We photograph the finished canvas and send you the photos. You approve it or you tell us what to change. Nothing ships until you say yes.
5. Step 5 We pack it as a tube, stretched, framed or crated, and release it for collection from our Shenzhen studio.

Add it up and one piece is roughly four weeks door to door, because express by FedEx or DHL takes 5 to 10 business days on top of the painting time. Order about six weeks before the date. That leaves room for the part people underestimate, which is choosing the photo and going back and forth once on the faces.

Three things push you to the slow end of the band. Oil dries slowly between layers, so oil takes longer than acrylic. Heavy texture has to dry between layers too. Pieces 36 by 48 inches and larger sit at the top of their band. If your date is tight, say so in the first message and we will tell you honestly whether it fits.

Choosing the size and the finish

Most couples order one piece, and most of them hang it in the bedroom or over a sofa. We do not publish a chart for every wall, because walls differ. We do have a rule of thumb we give everybody, and it is this one.

• Measure the furniture, not the wall. We usually suggest a painting about two thirds the width of the bed, sofa or mantel below it. That proportion is what people read as correct without knowing why.
• If you are torn between two sizes, take the larger one. A canvas that is slightly too small on a big wall looks like an afterthought, and a hand-painted piece earns the space.
• Match the shape to the photo. First dance photos are usually vertical, so a vertical canvas needs no invention. If you want a horizontal painting from a vertical photo, we build the sides of the scene and show you that in the proof before we go further.
• Give faces room. A close portrait of two people carries more detail than a venue at dusk, so tell us it is a face piece and we will suggest a size that gives the faces enough canvas.
• Think in sets. We paint sets of two and three. A set of two lets you hang the ceremony and the first dance side by side. A set of three suits a long wall over a sofa or a bed.

Our standard range runs from 24 by 20 inches up to 80 by 60 inches, with 60 sizes in it. Any other size is painted to your measurements at the same rate, so an odd wall is not a problem. Anything larger than 80 by 60 inches we quote case by case. Send us the width of the wall and the width of the furniture under it, and we will come back with a size from the range.

Rolled, stretched or framed

There are three finishes and the right one depends on what happens next. Rolled in a tube is the cheapest way to ship, and your local framer stretches it. Stretched on solid wood bars arrives ready to hang on the day it lands. Framed comes in black, white, wood, silver or gold, and all five frame colors cost the same. If the painting is a gift with a date on it, stretched or framed saves you a trip to the framer in the week before the party. Heavy texture ships stretched or framed only, because rolling thick impasto is not recommended.

Buying a keepsake from a studio you have never met

You are about to send your wedding photo to people on the other side of the world and ask them to paint it. That deserves a straight answer, so here is how the risk is actually handled.

Two more things you should know rather than find out later. Delivery is EXW our Shenzhen studio, which means freight is a separate line quoted at cost, and transit risk passes to you once the goods leave us. And paintings executed entirely by hand fall under HTS 9701, which carries a free base rate of duty into the United States, though other China origin measures can apply, so confirm with a customs broker if you are importing several pieces.

One more straight answer. We do not sell work signed by a named artist, so if gallery provenance is what you want, we are not it, and we would rather say that now. What you get is a canvas painted by hand in our studio, from your photo, that you saw and approved before it left.

For photographers, planners and venues

A painted portrait is one of the few upsells a wedding photographer can offer that costs nothing to hold in stock. You already have the files, the client relationship and, usefully, the copyright, which makes you the easiest party to clear the permission question.

There is no minimum order, so you can test it with one piece for one client. The rate improves at 6 pieces and again at 21, and mixed designs count together, so a photographer’s five portraits and a venue’s ten thank you canvases can sit on the same order. Production runs 10 to 15 business days for 6 to 20 pieces and 15 to 20 for 21 to 50. For a first order or a large project we paint a sample, and the sample cost is credited back on any order of 10 pieces or more.

For venues and planners ordering volume, rolled canvas in a tube is the cheapest way to ship, especially above about 20 pieces, and your local framer stretches them. Heavy texture is the exception, because thick impasto should ship stretched or framed rather than rolled. If you want to resell under your own name, see our trade terms and tell us what you need.

Good fit and not a fit

A good fit

• You have a photo you love and you want it on canvas, painted by hand, at a size a print would look thin at.
• Your date is six weeks away or more.
• You want the venue, the church or the proposal spot painted, with or without people in it.
• You are marking a 25th or 50th anniversary with an old black and white photo brought into color.
• You are a photographer, planner or venue who wants a painted piece to sell or gift, starting at one.

Not a fit

• You want a painting made live at the wedding while guests watch. Book a live event painter for that.
• You need it in hand in under about three weeks. Painting plus express freight rarely fits that.
• You want a signed original by a named artist or gallery provenance. We do not sell that.
• Your only photo is a small, dark screenshot where you genuinely cannot make out the faces.
• You want us to copy a living artist’s painting or another studio’s design.
• You want fifty tiny favor sized canvases. Every one is painted by hand, so fifty small pieces is still fifty painting sessions.

If you would rather start from a catalog piece than a photo, our floral and botanical collection is where most anniversary gifts come from, and we can recolor any design to match your room. For the mechanics of turning a file into a canvas, see photo to painting. For everything else we paint to order, from a house portrait to a honeymoon coastline, start at our custom art hub.