Transforming Wedding Invites into Art

Wedding invitations that become works of art. It’s Gallery Collection, the new idea from the digital craft workshop PopTheQuestion, which, through collaboration with national and international artists, creates wedding invitations featuring the works of illustrators and painters. In this way, on one hand, the wedding invitation becomes a poster to be preserved by guests and an indelible memory for the couple, while on the other, it provides a new source of income for the artists, all in the name of sustainability.

Gallery Collection: between weddings and artist prints. Gallery Collection bridges two sectors. The first is that of artist prints, which pertains to home decor and design and has been gaining traction in recent years. Indeed, there has been an increase in Italian and foreign websites selling ‘wall art’ with illustrations by artists, song lyrics, Pantone colors, and cinema posters, useful for decorating homes or easy relooking. This trend merges with the wedding sector, a field that has experienced ups and downs but continues to be quite thriving, having generated a turnover of over 3.5 billion euros in Italy in 2023 alone, with an average of 21,000 euros per wedding. Despite these figures, the fateful ‘yes’ has undergone many changes over time, from well-known ones—such as the drastic decrease in church weddings (-8.2% in 2023 compared to 2022)—to more innovative ones, like the new trends of endless weddings, i.e., weddings that last a weekend, or the latest trendiest color, green. In short, even such a traditional field has long been open to changes and trends, and wedding invitations are no exception.

Gallery Collection: how it works. With over 70 prints from 20 Italian and international artists, Gallery Collection offers couples a variety of themes and illustrations to choose from. Once the artwork is selected, it becomes a personalized invitation with all the wedding details. After approval, the couple receives the wedding invitations, which can then be handed to the guests. The latter can easily separate the part dedicated to the details from the artwork, which can be kept and perhaps hung at home, thus also becoming a keepsake. ‘These invitations are indeed a real gift for the guests,’ say Nicola Candidi and Gillian Thornton, founders of PopTheQuestion.it.

Gallery Collection: the artists. But the guests and the couple are not the only protagonists of Gallery Collection. The 20 partner artists also play a fundamental role. Each of them provides one or more artworks, in two different formats, and for each artwork sold, PopTheQuestion pays the artist a sum from the sale. ‘In a few months, we have attracted many Italian illustrators and opened up to international ones: we have collaborations from Germany, the Netherlands, and even Japan,’ explains Candidi, who continues: ‘We are looking for artists from all over the world and we are convinced that this represents a good source of income for them too, especially at a time when artificial intelligence has brought profound changes to the art world and the artists’ business.’

Gallery Collection: the keyword is sustainability. With Gallery Collection, invitations have a real second life because, once received, they become design objects that, therefore, will not end up in a drawer. Not only that: even the packaging in which the artworks are shipped to guests is made with sustainable materials. ‘Today the world of weddings is changing and absorbs all the trends that we also find in the daily aspects of our lives,’ explains Candidi, ‘for this reason, we could not ignore this aspect either.’

PopTheQuestion. Behind this project is PopTheQuestion, a craft workshop founded by Nicola Candidi and Gillian Thornton in 2012, specializing in the world of printing coordinates for weddings and private events. With a team of designers, artisans, photographers, calligraphers, tailors, and illustrators who work every day doing continuous research and development of new design, printing, and cutting techniques, for 15 years PopTheQuestion has focused on quality and innovation of products. Thus, after the initial project that involved pop-up wedding invitations, PopTheQuestion has decided to innovate the wedding world once again with another idea to make the day of the fateful ‘yes’ special.