I’ve always been a hands-on-paper kind of person. Long before The Bride Studio existed, I was working in small advertising agencies, learning the discipline of design, before striking out on my own six years ago. The real spark, though, came from designing my own wedding stationery – watercolour, ink, pencil, oil paint, whatever the story called for. What began as pieces made purely for my own day slowly became something other couples wanted for theirs. That was the beginning of The Bride Studio.

No templates, no AI-generated shortcuts – just bespoke, hand-illustrated pieces that felt as considered as the day they were made for. Taking that leap, and building a studio entirely around that belief, is still one of the best decisions I’ve made.

what I love most about this work is that no two projects ever look the same. Every couple brings a different story, a different palette, a different feeling they want their guests to walk into – and translating that onto paper, by hand, is a privilege I don’t take lightly. Some days that’s an oil-painted botanical suite, others it’s a monogram built from scratch or a fringe-trimmed menu that needed three suppliers and a lot of patience to get exactly right.

I also happen to know this world from the other side of the aisle. I got married at Zonzo Estate in the Yarra Valley in 2024 to Thomas – so when I sit down with a couple, I’m not just designing for a wedding day, I understand what it means to want every detail to feel like you.

The Bride Studio is very much a two-person affair. I look after every design — from our semi-custom collections through to fully bespoke suites — along with quoting and making sure what you’ve envisioned is exactly what goes to print with our high-end printers. Thomas runs the back end, handling packaging and dispatch and making sure our semi-custom collections are easy to order, piece by piece, so everything arrives just as it should.

In essence, The Bride Studio is where illustration, craft and a genuine love of love come together — one bespoke suite at a time. 

Lot’s of love 

Ashleigh Hatton