Caroline & Tom × Leatherius Woodman – a private wedding gift study
From the Practice Log – a private wedding-gift study from Leatherius Woodman.
A July study.
Caroline and Tom marry on September 19, 2026, near Chapel Hill, and their weekend gathers in the small town of Pittsboro, North Carolina. Most of the room will travel to be there. A room that travels carries luggage, and luggage is where our trade begins.
The couple's published story hands a designer nearly everything. It begins with a first date over a beer in 2019 and turns on a proposal made exactly six anniversaries later; the wedding now brings that arc back to the corner of North Carolina where it started, at an old chapel made new. From it we drew three brass-die directions, sketched on our own bench before anyone asked. Each answers a different emotional job, and each is shown below as a render on its own small family of leathers – three tags to an image, the same stamp on all three.
The standing ampersand
The first direction is the couple's own lockup, set the way a letterpress shop sets a colophon. One large single-loop ampersand, 16 mm tall, stands at center and carries all the warmth; the initials C and T hold to 9 mm at either side, above a thin rule and the date 9.19.2026, every stroke a uniform 1.2 mm so the brass strikes deep and clean. The period dots are pinned at a full millimeter so they survive the die. The render carries it across a family of three – camel and natural take the blind deboss, and the black tag wears gold foil. A mark this quiet can sit at every seat in the room without asking for attention, which is the whole job of a guest gift.
The Pittsboro arch
The second direction names the town where the weekend gathers. A round-top arch, drawn as textbook Roman geometry, is split into two equal lights by a single mullion; PITTSBORO sits straight above the crown, 2026 below the open base, and the die carries no other line. Two lights standing together under one arch is as far as we let the symbolism reach. The render sets it on its own family of three, blind-debossed in every case – cognac and forest green, with natural leather alongside. We invented the arch from plain historic geometry precisely so it belongs to no real building; should even that feel too close to the chapel's own face, the mullion drops and a single open arch remains.
Six ticks home
The third direction carries the longest story in the fewest strokes. A straight baseline leaves a small filled circle marked 2019 and arrives at a little open arch marked 2026; between the two stand six upright ticks. Guests who know the couple can count: six anniversaries lie between the first date and the chapel, and if we have read the public dates rightly, the sixth tick marks the proposal. If we have read them wrongly, it is still an honest line of travel. In the render it presses blind into blueberry and poppy red, and turns to gold foil on the black tag. Everyone else sees a clean route ending at a door, which suits us, since a keepsake ought to keep something back.
We made this out of love. Leatherius Woodman is on a mission to create and share artifacts of beauty, craft and love – this study is one of them, and we hope the feeling is mutual. Every image is a render – how we prototype before cutting a die.
If you're Caroline & Tom and you'd like one of these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.