Art as inspiration can make your wedding as pretty as a priceless painting
This August, she will walk down the aisle at her family's home near Cisco Beach in Nantucket with her fiancé, Boston real estate developer Gaetano Morello, surrounded by elements inspired by paintings by the likes of Gustav Klimt, William Samuel Horton and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
'I have a long love of art,' said McCready, who owns an eponymous art advising business that keeps her hopping between Boston, Palm Beach and Nantucket. 'I'm always either studying it or selling it. So when I think about the visuals for the event, my mind always goes to different artworks that I've fallen in love with over the years.'
Her wedding is structured like an elegant garden party, and for inspiration she looked to a detail from Georges Rochegrosse's 1894 oil painting 'Le Chevalier aux Fleurs' and to swirling colors of Renoir's 1879 impressionist painting, 'Spring (The Four Seasons).'
Klimt's lustrous golden phase and his later landscape paintings — think 1907's 'Bauerngarten' — influenced the selection of digital wedding invitations, fashion and decor. Meanwhile, a keen-eyed guest might catch a reference to Odilon Redon's 1912 watercolor 'Five Butterflies' on the save the date stationery. Even the reception lighting is intended to reflect the amber glow of 'Nighttime Festivities Held by President Loubet at the Elysée Palace in Honor of Alfonso XIII' by William Samuel Horton (1905).
One person who definitely gets the vision is her planner, Maureen Maher of Nantucket Island Events.
'When I show her an artwork she's like, 'That's going to look great. I love those colors,'' said McCready.
Wedding content creator Emily Cline added that art can do more than just color your wedding — it can become a central figure in it. Cline is on iPhone duty, capturing candid, intimate moments from the big day that the formal photographer might skip, to send your socials swooning.
She recently shot a couple's engagement at the Met in front of some of their favorite abstract artworks, as well as a wedding at the Parrish Art Museum in the Hamptons, where the art acted as a sophisticated backdrop.
Art museums and galleries are always popular — and even competitive — venues to book in the city, despite the tens of thousands you should expect to pay at, say, the Brooklyn Museum. (Note: The Met doesn't allow ceremonies, but it does host receptions, starting at an eye-watering $750,000). But while most use a museum's massive square footage merely as a grand event space, Cline said it's important to get intimate with what they have on display.
She directs couples to simply walk around, enjoy the art, take it in and be present. Of course, she also poses couples in front of stunning sculptures and canvases — prioritizing pieces that are about love — that then become a part of their wedding story.
'It turns out really beautifully, like a perfect date night,' said the NYC founder of Wedding Day Content Creator. 'Art adds a really personal touch and wonderful ambience.'
Still, some hot 'n' heavy connoisseurs crave the avant garde. They find it at Hall des Lumières. Located in the landmark Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank at 49 Chambers Street on the edge of Tribeca, the venue is New York City's first permanent immersive digital art center. It allows couples to custom program 360-degree digital projections, lighting and sounds so that you and your guests can step inside your favorite paintings. (Remember that touring Van Gogh exhibit that let you bask inside 'Starry Night'? It's basically that, on steroids.)
'We have 130 projectors and a look book, but we can also customize for any event,' said Harley Hendrix, the managing director of the space. 'Young brides tend to want to use it at its full capacity, and then we have some that are more traditional, and just want to keep it to a very nice, elegant, ever-changing backdrop.'
This futuristic-meets-beaux arts space has roughly 60 ready-made looks that the system can map out over the walls. They run the gamut from travel themes to Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers' and the golden motifs of Klimt. Match those with build-outs and you have a wedding that feels like you are inside your favorite frame. Better still, it can host up to 1,000 guests.
'Everything is customizable, but best of all, it just photographs so well. You can't tell where you are. Every time the projections change, the room changes,' said Hendrix. 'The only limit is your imagination. Want to be Mona Lisa? Fine, you are Mona Lisa.'
A wedding is one of those rare opportunities to create something new and exciting, said McCready.
'It's so cool to have so much creative control over this one event that's celebrating something so exciting in my life,' she said. 'I feel like I'm creating my own work of art.'
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