The story of A Little Brush
Let’s take it back to 2016…
Matt and I (finally!) got engaged, after 9.5 years. We’d been together since school, had gone through university, had saved-up while living with my parents for a few years, and had managed to buy our very own flat in North London. His proposal was perfect. I couldn’t believe my luck, and was SO excited to start planning! I had been obsessed with weddings for many years leading up to this point, so I had a pretty strong vision of our wedding day in my head already! I had seen a real wedding featured in one of the blogs I’d read, and became set on a venue before we’d even visited it.
South Farm. Oh, what a special, special place. They had an open day the week after we got engaged, so we went along to see it, and instantly fell in love. It’s a bit like the feeling you get when you view your dream house for the first time - We just knew it was the one. We set a date! April 27th 2018, and the planning took off from there.
We all know weddings aren’t cheap, so we tried to enlist a lot of our friends & family to help, as well as doing some bits ourselves. My sister did our flowers, my cousin did my make-up, my friend made our cake, my cousins sang at our reception, and I did all of our wedding stationery. I have a background in graphic design, and had done some stationery for friends’ weddings previously, so I loved having the opportunity to create my own!
I decided to design a little booklet to be placed on each guest’s seat in our ceremony, which included a timeline of our relationship, as well as an order-of-the-day and some info about our bridal party. Matt had studied Painting at university, so I suggested he paint the gorgeous yellow South Farm farmhouse in watercolour for the front page, and he did an incredible job. It was so beautiful!
The idea was born. Why not offer paintings like this as personalised prints for other couples to enjoy?
Matt began painting a range of other venues, and we gifted them to friends for their weddings, before setting up an Etsy shop in September 2017. We quickly realised that other people felt strong connections to their wedding venue just like we did to ours, and we began receiving requests for various venue portrait commissions. Our portfolio grew and grew, and we loved the creativity that our little business brought us alongside our full-time jobs.
Our wedding day finally arrived, and it was amazing. It didn’t stop raining all day, but it was perfect!
Images by Emma Case Photography
We continued growing A Little Brush, Matt painting in the evenings, and I ran the other areas of the business. We bought a house and moved out of London to Hertfordshire, where we’ve since welcomed two children together.
Fast-forward to 2025, and I’m thrilled that A Little Brush is now my full-time job. We have over 180 venues in our portfolio, from hotels to manor houses, barns to town halls. We are now a recommended supplier for South Farm, as well as 14 other stunning wedding venues. I design bespoke wedding stationery for multiple clients each year, and we also create beautiful custom pet portraits and original house portraits too.
This is my absolute dream job, and we’re so grateful for every single order, commission and stationery booking. Here’s to many more years of creating beautiful watercolour keepsakes!