Personalised Wedding Map for the wedding of Sonja & Rob

This commission for a personalised wedding map was a very special one. I was approached by Sonja who was engaged to Rob, and who wanted to have their journey so far illustrated in a personalised map artwork to give to him for their wedding. They met whilst travelling in Central America, on a beach at Playa El Tunco in El Salvador and since that day have managed to do some serious adventuring together, nearly always in their beloved camper van called Chester.

Sonja wrote an in-depth account of how she and Rob had met, and the path that their lives had taken since. She also sent me a great album of photos of their extensive travels and key moments to be featured in the wedding map, from the night that they first met, to the proposal, to their adoption of their cute adopted tabby street-cat called Simba. I must admit that after studying the photographs and researching each of the locations, I feel like I was there with them for some of their trips - having referenced those images so many times during the drawing process! I loved researching this piece, discovering so many fascinating places and getting very inspired for more travelling myself.

I handed the finished, framed personalised map over to Sonja in person. Rob was with her at the time, and as the gift was still a secret we said that I was an old friend. Rob then introduced himself and we chatted quite a bit, I had to do my best to hide that I already knew a LOT about his life!