Wedding supplier spotlight: Live wedding painter Marcela Buckley

What service do you provide at weddings?

I create live wedding paintings, which is a unique and artistic way to capture the bride and groom’s special day. It’s captured on a canvas that they get to keep for the rest of their lives. I offer the newlyweds and their guests a chance to witness their paintings come to life, adding a personal touch and a lasting memory to their celebration. 

It’s not a typical wedding service. It’s a one-of-a-kind experience that catches the beauty in real-time. The painting could be their first kiss, their first dance or simply, a little giggle outside the venue. I’ll capture this moment in the painting throughout the day. 

How does the booking process work?

Once a client books me, I’ll hop on a call with the bride and groom a few weeks before the wedding, and we’ll discuss their vision or if they would like me to take creative control. So during this call, we’ll talk about the scene that they’d like me to paint – different colours, poses or any other details like if they’d like a pet in the painting or other personal touches. I’ll also do my research before this call, and I’ll suggest a few spots around the venue that I think would look great in a painting. 

Then, on the wedding day, I arrive at the venue one to two hours before the guests, and I began painting the background. As the guests arrive, the painting will already be underway. I’ll take photos and videos just to use as a reference throughout the day. A lot of people think that I need the bride and groom to sit for me for ages which is not true. All I need is about five to 10 minutes at the same time as the photographer.

Most of the time, the scene they will choose is their first dance, their first kiss or a more natural moment. The most popular ones are the more candid moments rather than a posed look. So this could be in front of the venue, in a garden surrounded by flowers, or them walking, looking at each other and laughing. 

What inspired you to start this business?

I was about 12 when I did my first full drawing, and I just loved it straight away. I was quite young, obviously, so I wasn’t very good at the time, but I just wanted to make my drawing better, so I kept practising. I wanted to do art in school, but my parents thought there were better career options out there. So I decided to go with an actuarial career because I always loved numbers as well. But I kept up with my art throughout college and work just purely because I love it. I lose track of time when I paint.

I had the belief that it was too hard to make a living from it, so I’ve always loved it as a hobby. But over the last few years, I kept coming across other artists online who were doing it full-time. So slowly, I started to change my mindset and started to believe that it is possible to do it for a living. I think what motivated me was a combination of loving the craft and being inspired by other artists. It’s a fairly big industry in The States, Australia and the UK, but it hasn’t become big in Ireland yet.

The main thing that pushed me was discovering live wedding painting. I started my art business four years ago so that I could slowly work on growing it into a sustainable career. I planned to do that alongside actuary and to take my time with it. I thought, ‘Maybe when I’m in my 40s I’ll go full time and I’ll be living the dream’. But when I did my first live wedding painting, I completely fell in love with it.

Live wedding painting was something I really connected to. So, I thought ‘Why not now? Let’s go for it and take the risk.’ I could see a future in it so clearly, and I remember very vividly driving back from the first wedding I did, thinking this was my calling. So from then on, all I could think about was making a career out of this. Now, I’m solely focusing the majority of my energy on live wedding painting.

What makes your service unique from other wedding suppliers in the same space?

It’s very unique, and that’s the main reason I would recommend it to couples getting married. It’s something that hasn’t been seen by the majority of people in Ireland. When a bride and groom plan their wedding, they want it to be special for themselves but also for their guests, so having a memorable experience like this adds an extra spark of creativity to their day. The beauty of it is, while it’s entertaining for the guests on the day, there’s also the beautiful painting at the end of it all, so the bride and groom get to keep it themselves as a memory of their day. 

I also recommend it to couples because it allows them to add pets to their painting. I’ve found that, especially since Covid-19, pets are treated more like children. They’re such a big part of people’s lives, but more often than not, they can’t be at the wedding. So with painting, I can add them in from photos, making it that much more special. A big part of the whole experience is the guests too. I constantly have people looking over my shoulder and a lot of the night is spent talking to the guests about the painting, and with the bride and groom as well.

What’s your favourite part about your job?

There are so many reasons I particularly like live wedding painting, but the main one is that I love creating art that gives people butterflies. When they look at their painting, it gives them a warm, fuzzy feeling – that’s why I focus on creating a painting of just the bride and groom themselves. They get to keep that forever, and every time they look at it, they get to remember the best day of their lives.

It’s also great knowing that their closest family and friends get to see the painting come together right in front of them. I think that’s so special and no other painting or commission can offer that. I also love weddings in general. Everyone is there to celebrate the bride and groom. Everyone’s in a good mood, and I really feed off that energy in the room. 

The beauty of a painting versus a photograph is that you can change things. For example, if there’s a photo that the bride likes but the groom prefers how he looks in another, you can combine the two. You can also add little details of their wedding in the background that really add to their whole day. In a photo, you might not be able to capture that whereas in the painting, you can add that in so it creates a collage of their entire day.

How far in advance should a bride-to-be contact you before her wedding?

The more time the better. I would say six to 12 months before the wedding would be ideal. However, since I’m only at the start of my career, sometimes I have short-term availability too, at least a month away from the wedding, so that could be arranged as well.

How long does it take you to finish the painting?

It takes about eight hours. So I will be at the venue for about eight hours, which might seem like a long time, but it’s only a fraction of the time that it takes me to fully complete a painting. At the end of the night, the painting will look complete to everybody else. But there’ll be a lot of details that I need to add to make it look more realistic, so that will take me another maybe 15-plus hours back in the studio.

How long until the couple receives their completed painting?

In the contract, the timeline I give is two to six weeks just to give that extra time. Once the touch-ups are completed in the studio, I’ll send the bride and groom photos and videos of the painting. Sometimes, they would like a few changes, so I give myself time to incorporate those and then once they’re happy with the results, I varnish the painting, frame it, and then post it off to them.

What’s one of your favourite weddings you’ve worked at and why?

I love all of them so much, but I think one of my favourite ones is the first painting that I did of Erin and Steven in Clonabreany House in Co Meath. I met them through a friend of a friend, and I reached out to them to see if they were interested and it ended up being their gift from a close friend. Their painting captured a lovely candid moment just outside the venue. They were relaxed, walking towards me, looking at each other and then towards the camera. We took lots of photos and then we picked one out, in which they looked very natural. We chose an iconic background so that you’d notice the venue straightaway.

This first painting marked such a big turning point in my life. I was so grateful they had me as part of their day and trusted me with the whole painting, having not seen me in action before. So that’s always something that I’ll remember. It was a fantastic experience, and the feedback from it was incredible. 

What areas of Ireland do you cover? Are you available abroad?

I travel to any venue in Ireland and I also travel abroad. I haven’t gone abroad yet, but I’d love to travel for a wedding. I can already picture a sunny day in Italy or Portugal with a stunning beach in the background. I think it would be amazing. 

To learn more about Marcela Buckley Art or book a live wedding painting, visit her website.