Remember a couple weeks ago when I wrote about our morning wedding and brunch reception?
If you missed it, check it out here.
After that post, I had a lot people asking about the wedding coffee mug story. So today I am sharing a brief version of our story and some tips on painting your own coffee mugs!
But before you hear the story, you'll want to get some background knowledge on our coffee mugs. Once you’ve read about them, come right back here...there’s more!
Now that you know how and where they were used in our wedding, here’s the (very brief) story.

On one of our first dates (Maybe like the 4th or 5th?), Bryn and I went to Mad Potter to paint coffee mugs. Romantic, am I right? During this date, I worked REALLY hard on my mug. Meanwhile, Bryn was busy telling me all about the cottage on the lake and painting a sailboat on his mug.
Fast forward to a week later. On the way to pick up the mugs, we joked that something happened to my mug because I spent SO much time on it.

Turns out, it was actually Bryn’s mug that didn’t fire correctly. So, they let us take mine home and said they would re-fire Bryn’s.
A couple weeks went by and we never heard from Mad Potter. Finally I called and asked about Bryn’s mug; they gave it to someone else. Wait what? You mean it’s gone forever?
They apologized and we hoped this random person who received Bryn’s sailboat mug would return it.

Fast forward to the day after we got engaged. Bryn gets a phone call. Some random person has Bryn’s mug and would like to return it to him.
Wait what? Why didn’t you call like 9 months ago?
With us getting the mug back the day after getting engaged and knowing that our coffee mug date was where we started to fall in love, we knew we had to include these mugs in our wedding. They will always be special to us.
Painting a coffee mug
On our 2nd anniversary, guess what we did? Yep, that’s right. We painted coffee mugs.
We started with two different types.

I decided to draw some birch trees. A Fall scene..because you can’t go wrong with Fall.


Then I used the small paint bottles you can draw with and went over my pencil lines.

Bryn was really concentrating this time.

He was drawing Nash and Roman!

And here they are, ready to be fired!

And..you'll never believe this. When I returned one week later to pick up our lovely mugs, something happened (A miscommunication?) and I couldn't bring them home.
Sigh. Just our luck.
I'm now waiting for something glorious to happen as it did last time.
Here's the finished product (yes, we did finally get them).


Okay, it's your turn. Go paint something awesome! Here's a few tips:
ONE
Look for ideas first. I often will go to Pinterest or just google coffee mug art or plate art (depending on what you are making).
TWO
Draw with pencil first! The pencil will disappear when it's fired in the kiln, so draw your little heart out!
THREE
Mess ups are not so easy to fix. Don't tell him I told you, but Bryn messed up a few times and ended up painting over his mess up. Be careful and plan ahead!