A Right Royal Life Map!

We love a little Royalty here at Illustries – we had such a great time celebrating the Royal Wedding last year and we’re already prepared for the Jubilee! And we’ve been working on our Illustries Life Map recently – it’s so popular at the moment – that in a second of madness we decided to combine the two in a 1st anniversary tribute to William and Kate.

Now the Life Map is a ‘flow chart’ of a relationship, a tongue in cheek way of charting the journey from childhood to Happy Ever After. Each map is hand drawn in style, and we add some funny and enlightening notes to bring the whole thing to life. It’s designed to be the perfect celebration of love, with more than a little bit of a twist.

So to celebrate this very special first anniversary – it is traditionally ‘paper,’ after all – we’ve charted one of the world’s most well-known relationships: Prince William and the former Catherine Middleton. Starting with their childhoods, the Map takes you through the university days of St Andrews and on to the hopes of the nation, even including the hiccup that had us all worried for a while. Moments like ‘that’ fashion show, William carrying his mother’s engagement ring in his rucksack, and a spin on the waiting that Kate was alleged to have endured all make an appearance, naturally offset with our trademark cheeky comments.

Now we’re sure that the Royal couple would want a few tweaks, but the Right Royal Life Map is winging it’s way to Clarence House this morning – we think it will make the perfect gift if Prince Harry has forgotten the occasion!

We originally created the Life Map as just one page in our Avant Garde Illustry (and it’s still there!), but it has quite literally taken on a life of it’s own in the past few weeks – we’ve crafted some gorgeous examples for Vicki & Pietro and Rhys & Michelle, among others. Both couples put their Life Maps on display at their reception, telling us that guests were engrossed – well, the maps certainly got them talking! And what better lasting memory of your big day?

Take a look at the details right here:

Your very own unique Illustries Life Map is waiting, available exclusively from us at £275 – order now by calling 0845 468 1610 or email us at hello@illustries.com

How do they do that?

Pages and pages of wedding reports that read just like the celebrity wedding specials we all love - just how do we create them? Well, our Head of Words, Emma, trained at Cardiff University's School of Journalism and has been a professional writer for (*whispers*) about fifteen years, so we think that her training and experience really shows - no self-appointed 'freelance writers' here at Illustries!

To create the report, Emma gathers lots of information beforehand and then conducts interviews after the big day. We don’t attend, and we think that's important, as there are enough people to worry about at a wedding and above all, we think the happy couple want to remember what they thought of their day, not what we thought! We interview the couple – separately, if possible, because it is lovely to be surprised by the things the other half says – by telephone, frantically scribbling notes (we record the conversation too!). And then we interview the people they nominate - for CELEB, normally the Best Man.

Then it is time for heads down and lots of coffee as we write, edit, refine, edit, refine and edit again until we've got a lovely, bouncy, emotional and succinct record of the big day - we are firm believers in 'less is more' when it comes to words, we include thousands of them, but they are very carefully chosen!

Finally, our favourite bit: words and pictures get to meet each other. Lots of proofreading later and we get to our favourite part - sending the CELEB Magazine to our couple.

Cue squeals of delight (we hope!).

Check out our Guest Editor extract, on the right! ->

The Wedding Report

  

Our CELEB magazines kick off with a full report - just like the celebrity features we all read at the hairdresser! We cover the whole wedding day, placing our customers' images in our signature CELEB layouts to create a fabulous, romantic story. We interview the bride and groom (and others, but more on that another time!) and we don't stop at the wedding itself. We find out how our couple met, all about the proposal, how they felt as they planned the big day - and all those emotions and nerves!

CELEB has taken over!

Don't be alarmed! Library of Days will be back, but for a wee while, CELEB magazine has launched an assault on the blog. We'll be sharing all the details of our celebrity baby with you - how we create each magazine, how we make it bespoke, how we sprinkle it with that celebrity magic. We'll let you in on all the features - and there are lots - that make a CELEB, well, fabulous darlings!

Our lovely clients, Mel and Andy have agreed that we can share their magazine with you,so look out for all their gorgeous pink accents. Today, the front cover, CELEB Parties and the introduction to a special story. Check back tomorrow for the next instalment...

P.S. CELEB is only one of our gorgeous memory books, check http://www.illustries.com/ for more!