PAINTINGS BY JAISON SCHAFER OF LIVE PAINTING PGH

Your wedding day memories can live on forever through photographs or video — or a painting.

Live painting is becoming an increasingly popular way couples commemorate their wedding day (Kenny Pickett and Amy Paternoster hired Pittsburgh-based speed painter Cody Sabol for their June wedding). A painter attends your wedding, captures a specific moment or a portrait, and you get a unique souvenir.

Jaison Schafer, who owns Live Painting PGH with fellow artist Stephanie Cassidy, says they started doing weddings around eight years ago, and it took off. 

“I think everybody loves art and needs more art in their life, and if you can have a live painter at your wedding that’s a bonus, and then you get to take the painting home with you and keep it forever and basically relive the wedding every time you look at it,” Cassidy says. “I also think it’s interesting that you can see your wedding through the eyes of an artist.”

Megan Abbott and Ryan Gartley hired Live Painting PGH for their March 11 wedding and kept it a surprise for their guests.

“It was such a nice touch,” Megan says, noting they asked Schafer to paint their first dance when Ryan lifted Megan into the air. She says it was a big crowd-pleaser. 

PHOTO BY DAWN DERBYSHIRE PHOTOGRAPHY

“It makes our job even better [when people watch],” Schafer says. “People can’t believe what we’re doing. Everyone loves it.”

Schafer says they’ll paint for around six or seven hours during the wedding until it looks mostly finished, but they’ll continue working on the piece for weeks in their studio. 

“We have worked really hard on our style,” Cassidy says. “It’s the best of both worlds when it comes to a painting because we don’t want our paintings to look like photos.”

“We feel a painting should express more than just a carbon copy,” Schafer adds.

Their typical package for the painting, frame and prints is around $3,000.

JACLYNN AND ZAC PHOTOS BY ABBIE TYLER PHOTOGRAPHY

When Jaclynn Stankus was planning her Aug. 27, 2022, wedding to Zac Kuchta, she wanted a lot of details guests would notice and appreciate, so a live painter seemed ideal. They hired Lisa Marie Paints to capture their ceremony at Heinz Memorial Chapel; she continued painting throughout their reception at Hotel Monaco.

“The one thing that I did say throughout the whole [planning] process was that although I wanted it to be like a classic wedding style, I did want to have some of those unique touches that I felt like people would like notice of … so that was sort of how we stumbled across the live painting idea,” Jaclynn says.