Michael and Ruby are friends of ours who wanted to have their meeting and engagement told as an animation. It was the first time anyone had approached us to do anything like this so it was a learning process for both of us!

We started by getting them to write down their version of the story. They wrote about three pages each and it was hilarious how different their view point were. We worked with them to produce a 2 page script based on their stories.  Then, we went into a recording studio where we recorded their voices reading the dialogue and we even went so far as to compose a song for them.

They knew what style of animation they wanted from the start- soft colours, cute characters, minimal backgrounds.  The characters have actually be customised to look like Ruby and Michael.

The animation process was pretty time consuming. Once the design of the characters were decided upon, we created a visual story board so that we could picture what each shot was going to look like. The animators then drew out each shot as per storyboard. The characters were animated in a software called After Effects and another animator coloured in all the drawings. When you think about it, it takes 25 drawings to get 1 second of animation, so the whole process was pretty lengthy!

We then added in the sound effects and timed it out to the music.

They ended up playing it at their reception (to a standing ovation) and there’s talk of inserting it at the beginning of their wedding video.

We showed this at a recent wedding expo  where everyone was amazed and thought it was a wonderful idea. I would love to claim credit for this idea, but the concept is actually pretty popular in Hong Kong and other Asian countries. Hopefully though, animated engagement stories will take off through Australia soon.

We hope seeing this animation will give people ideas about their own animation. Each couple’s story is different and we always work with the couple throughout the entire process to find a unique visual style that suits their personality and conveys exactly what they want to say on their big day.

Ms Polka Dot says: Another cute and different idea from The Animated Bride. Thank you for providing this to us to give us all some different ideas to add a personal touch to our wedding day! It would be such fun to make and would be a real talking point amongst the guests.

The Animated Bride says: I like to create creative animations and invitation designs for anything wedding related!