Boondogle Saints

The Story: This is one of my personal favorites.  Shane Patton is my younger brothers best friend. Since they were kids they were buddies, which makes him like a second annoying little brother.  Shane also happens to be a fellow Marine Captain.  Shane is a proud Irish-American as is his brother and father.  But Shane is also a goofball, and one of the funniest people I know...so with guidance from Anthony we mixed the Goofy and the Irish in this poster.

The Poster: The Boondock Saints movie is the inspiration for this poster.  Shane and his brother serve as the Saints, and I was able to sillouette shadow their faces and add them to the brick Irish Flag background.  In a twist, Anth asked me to add their old man as El Duce (The Duke).  His groomsmen fill out the rest of the cast, and I tried to keep them in line with the characters in the movie...Shane's new brother in laws were perfect for the Russian mobsters!

Hussas

The Story: My brother in law and his younger brother both had big events this spring/summer.  Billy Hussa was turning the big 3-0, and Mike Hussa "Mook" was getting hitched.  Both guys are sports fans, and aging athletes.  Billy still plays adult league hockey, and Mike still plays adult league baseball...both of them try so hard to re-live those "glory days" when they were hitting the 5 hole, slugging homers, and not planning weddings or wiping the boogie noses of kids and nephews/nieces.  To help them into the era of "not as good as I once was, but as good as I once was" we made them these two parting shots.

The Posters: Mook's poster centers on his baseball prowess.  Mike is a catcher, so he didn't really work as one of the Major League main characters, but he worked as an additional character.  We put his groomsmen in as three of the players on the Indians, and we also were able to use his wife as the "you guys suck" owner who was posterized by the manager (Mr. Hussa).

Billy's hockey poster features his best buddies from college, his three sons (Who I picture as the Hanson Triplets) and his Brother.  This was a challenge because the Slap Shot poster is an off orange color and it has a cartoonish look to it.  I was able to color the faces of his entourage and use the features of photoshop to add the cartoon look to them as well.  I think it blends well.

My First Wedding Seating Chart

THE STORY : My sister-in-law Colleen got Married this past weekend. The wedding was a blast and it was at the Ballroom at the Ben in Philadelphia! During the planning of the wedding I did their bachelor posters (previous story) and I also helped with a slide show in honor of Maryellen (Col's mom) who died on July 4th, 2011 before her youngest daughter got married. Col was searching for a unique way to do a seating chart and she wanted it centered around Philadelphia. So I decided to try and help her out.

THE POSTER: We began working with very cartoonish posters about Philly. Then Col got the idea to make each table a famous location in Philadelphia. "The Places We Love". So Colleen and T put together a list of those places, from her college (Drexel) to where her mom and her work (UPENN Hospital), to just plain cool places (The Liberty Bell). We didn't know if we should use cartoon images, or actual pictures...then I got an idea to find actual pictures and do rough-sketches of them to make it seem very Artsy-Fartsy...Col would make fun of me for this word later. What we wound up with was an amazing poster with the seating chart, the stage, the dance floor, the dessert bar, and the alcohol bars. And on each table we used the images from the poster to mark the centerpieces as well! One of the coolest posters to date.

REAL BRIDESMAIDS

THE STORY : So a blast from the past, Christina Guffin, hit me up and said she saw the blog. She was impressed with the work and wanted to get a poster done for her sister Jean Marie, who would be having a bachelorette party in AC! She sent me some pictures of the bridesmaids and some insight into the different girls and their personalities, and asked me to do whatever I wanted! She is my first real (Non Relative) customer! I think she loved it!

THE POSTER : For a while I have been wanted to do something with the REAL HOUSEWIVES...but housewives doesn't always apply to bridesmaids since some may be single, working etc...so we tired a mix. The REAL BRIDESMAIDS of ATLANTIC CITY. We threw the group on there, let the Maid of Honor name them with cool Oceans 11 names, and then acted like it was the premier of a new reality show about these girls and the bachelorette party they were going to!

Col & T

The Story: Col and T are getting Married March 31st. Col is my sister-in-law, and she is a tough cookie! T is my soon to be brother-in-law who is a huge fan of men's league sports...football, baseball, wiffle ball, whatever. So they were having bachelor parties on the same weekend and we needed to come up with some posters to send them into marriage with some comic relief.

The Poster (T): Any athlete worth his salt will recognize the old Bo Jackson "multi-sport" athlete poster that I used as a baseline for this poster. T poses on the cover of a Sports IllustrATOR magazine, with the headline being about his deteriorating career. Below his spiral downward is depicted in a slew of photo's even including a cameo by Charlie Sheen! Along the left bottom is the tribute to the groomsmen. Lined up on their own baseball cards, they fill the ranks of those other superstars who have ruined their careers along the way!

The Poster (Col): Col is a tough girl for sure, and based on the fact that the bachelor weekend was St. Patrick's weekend, and the fact that she is Irish and hard as nails, Chris felt like something along the lines of Irish Mafia was the best way to go. So, The O'Reilly Clan was born. On an Irish Flag Background I changed Col's dress from Black to Irish Flag Colors and then plastered the open space with newspaper and magazine headlines paying tribute to the activities of the Irish All-Girl Mafia started by Maryellen (Col's Mom) and now led in its illegal activities by Col herself. All of the bridesmaids make it into the magazine and newspaper headline photos.

Drew Bachelor Party

The Story: Drew is one of my best buddies from High School. He is part of an 8 man crew who I traveled to Greece with on an epic adventure that we all still have vivid memories about. Drew is one of the nicest, most well liked guys I know, and his friends threw him a bachelor party in Vegas before his wedding. They wanted to get a bunch of old pictures to plaster around his suite at the Mandalay Bay, but getting this group of guys to do anything is like herding cats...so instead we just pieced together this poster honoring his departure from the Bachelor's life!

The Poster: Drew is a man of many faces. In this poster we tried to capture all of the different DREWs...It also happened to be around the same time as the death of the rapper "Heavy D". Heavy D happened to be one of the nicknames we gave Drew as a kid. So we turned Drew in to Heavy D and said R.I.P. to the single Drew as he entered the married life. At the bottom we did something new and left a space for all the guys going to the bachelor party to sign something for Drew. His wedding day was Feb 18th. I don't remember what happened in Vegas otherwise I would tell you a story!!!

WANTED

The Story: My sister in law was turning 30 and we were having a prohibition style murder mystery party for her, so her husband asked me to pull together a wanted poster based on the character that she was playing in the mystery.

The Poster: Laura, or "Molly Moll" is wanted. All the other characters are listed and even I get a spot on this one, as the private investigator.

Celebrity

The Story: My brother's wife was turning 30 and we really wanted to do a poster for her that was similar to the People poster we did for Danielle..but, like I said the People poster got me in some trouble so we came up with Celebrity Magazine!

The Poster: Jill and Anth looking celebrity on the cover, with a couple hot shots on the side and down across the middle. Some big headlines to catch the eye. Then in a neat twist, we put Jill on the cover of two movies from the 80's (Her party was an 80's theme). If you zoom in enough you can see her on those movie covers.

Sexy In the City - of Allentown

The Story: This is actually the photoshop that started it all. Anthony's Scarface actually happened after the Sexy in the City bachelorette party invite. However, this was not actually a poster, this was a small card invitation that was sent out to the girls. The card was eventually converted to a poster for Jill's basement wall.

The Poster: This is a spoof on Sexy in the City, in case you didn't know. The poster gives the time and date, and who it is for, and then has a cool martini glass spilling and also serving as the Y in City. The skyline is not New York, although it seems like it, it is actually Allentown, PA the location of the party. The girls picked the colors, and font, and we were good to go!

SAMCRO

The Story: My youngest brother, Mikey, was graduating from Kent State and I thought I would do a cool poster for him for his graduation party. Mikey loves the show, Sons of Anarchy, and so do I. What better poster idea than to turn Him, Me, Anth, and Dad into Redwood Originals.....

The Poster: Enough Said! (This is actually not the final version of this poster...but this is the one for the rest of the world!!!)

The First 30th

The Story: So, up to this point we have been doing Bachelor Parties and Wedding Posters. But then came Danielle's 30th Birthday Party. Danielle is one of my wife's best friends and one of her 7 College Roomates. Yes, 7 others. So a total of 8 girls lived together in West Philly for about 3 years. Those girls, "The Crazy 8", still stay in touch, and threw a great party for Danielle. They also commissioned me to make her shine in her own PEOPLE magazine! FYI - This poster was lost in parking garage in Manhattan. Completely done and in a 30x20 frame. Someone took it...we can only assume that someone has Daniel hanging in their living room, or serving as the roof of their cardboard box.

The Poster: Cover Shot Of Danielle looking cute. A bunch of People type photos and tabloid style headlines, along with a group shot of all the girls who used to be roomates at PENN. I actually got in trouble for printing it with PEOPLE on it...I guess I have to make up a fake name next time.

Goodfellas Gazette

The Story: Kyle Emerich is my cousin and my best friend. We have been best buds since I was stealing his binkie. Naturally, when he was preparing to get married I just had to do something. Our grandparents, Dorrit and Tony Pino were really critical in creating the exceptional bond between cousins that Kyle, me, and all of our cousins have. Also, Pop Pino was a real Italian guy and always had us wondering if somehow deep in our lineage, our family was "connected". So, like the wiseguy that I am, I had to make a poster fitting to the Famiglia, and our cousins.

The Poster: The poster is a newspaper article. Every line was written around the central theme that Kyle was the new Godfather after the passing of Tony, and he and all his groomsmen had been busted and or were on the lamb in the wake of his wedding day. This is one of the first posters we did after the wedding, and used the wedding photos to fit it out. All of our cousin's are captured along the bottom and special spots given to groomsmen and the bride

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Brandon and Dorrit Leigh

The Story: Following the success of Anthony's Scarface Poster, we had to come up with another reason to create one of these products. My cousin marrying my brothers best friend presented a great opportunity, so we seized it. Brandon Trate has been a little (BIG) brother to me since...forever. He has been my younger brother's best friend for quite a while, and in addition to that he married my cousin Dorrit Leigh Emerich. Brandon and Dorrit Leigh have always known each other, through us, but it wasn't until they took a vacation with us to My Wife's Sisters Beach Home in Cape Charles, VA that the sparks ignited. Hiding behind a floating jetski in the warm Chesapeake Bay, they had their first kiss. I caught them, and told everyone, and the rest is history. They both have exceptionally funny personalities, so it wasn't hard to come up with these posters....they got a BOGO deal!

The Poster (Brandon): Brandon is a big, meathead, redneck, teddy-bear. And his groomsmen are a bunch of goofballs and goons. The wedding was taking place at a country club so we felt like the Caddyshack set up was perfect. The image in the background is actually the country clubhouse where they were getting married, and the group of guys in the hole are his groomsmen cut from various pictures of them acting like idiots. The redneck side of Brandon is really captured well!

The Poster (Dorrit): Women love to reflect on "how we met". So what better way pay tribute to how they met, than with a poster. Cape Charles, VA happens to be a historical location for the Pirates of the Chesapeake...yes they did exist...so we created a Pirates of the Chesapeake poster with Dorrit Leigh as the most wanted pirate. A Treasure map shows the X at Cape Charles with a starting point in their hometown of Allentown, PA. The rest is just fun additions to make the poster look authentic.

The One That Started It All

The Story: In 2010 my little brother got Married.But before he could do that I had to throw him a bachelor party. We wanted him to leave that bachelor party with some kind of takeaway... in remembrance of the good time. I have always been into graphic design, or "photoshopping" for fun, so I decided to apply that to something for my brother. A funny picture, turned into a meaningful/funny picture, then it turned into a poster, and then it became an amazing piece of photoshop art that hangs in his mancave as a hilarious tribute to his bachelor party.

The Poster: All of my posters have a significantly personal touch, and this reflects Anthony's personality to the T. A Don Juan guy with the Scarface look. The original Scarface poster had a paragraph talking about Tony Montana and his trip to the United States...we modified that to reflect how Tony Fay met his wife. Then we utilized the normal Credits Section to make reference to the fact that it is a Bachelor Party and a Groomsmen Production. I say WE because I always use the help of friends and family of the posters target to get the creative juices flowing. But this SCARFACE BACHELOR Poster, was the first of may creFAYtions!