NEED TO KNOW
- Presley Bergmooser is a live wedding painter
- The artist, 23, tells PEOPLE she typically has about five hours to finish her work, but loves the thrill
- Bergmooser notes that live painting is also a performance, as she entertains and interacts with guests while creating her pieces
Brides and grooms put a lot of trust into Presley Bergmooser to immortalize the moment they say “I do.”
Bergmooser is a live wedding painter who captures the ceremony on canvas and spends the reception finishing the piece while guests watch her work.
Bergmooser, 23, tells PEOPLE she was a studio artist until 2024, when someone from her hometown in Detroit asked if she would be willing to do a live painting at their wedding. Before accepting the offer, Bergmooser messaged another live painter for advice, and after talking things over, she decided to give it a shot — and immediately “fell in love with it.”
“I knew I wanted to be an artist. I always said that if I could travel the world and paint walls, I would be happy,” she shares. “The way that this has so naturally evolved, I still do murals and I still love them, but my calendar is much more focused on live art, and I love it.”
Bergmooser says the actual process of painting during a wedding “is so much fun.” While some people might feel overwhelmed by the pressure, Bergmooser loves the “crunch time” of having to get the piece done by the end of the night.
While most artists have the luxury of putting down their work when they “hit a wall,” Bergmooser has learned to power through.
“When I only have a couple of hours, I have to force myself to work through that,” she says. “No matter what it is, there’s always something where I’m like, this is really messing me up. By the end of the night, I have no choice. It needs to be done.”
From the time she starts at the ceremony to completion, she usually only has about five hours to paint.
“I’m an adrenaline junkie to the core,” she says. “In that 20 minutes right after the ceremony, I transfer everything and draw out my lines, and then right afterwards, I get to work, and it’s super fun.”
A key part of her job is the “live” aspect, as guests often interact with her and ask questions.
“I love talking to people. I’m doing it in the beginning stages. I usually try to bring in as many people as I can, too,” she says.
Sometimes, she lets guests offer suggestions and add something to the photo, but then, she “locks in.”
“I’ll put my headphones on, and whether it’s beats or jazz or Metallica, I zone in for a second, and then I rock it out,” she shares, noting that wedding goers are constantly stopping by to check out her progress.
Once she’s done, she takes her headphones off and examines her work before calling over the bride and groom.
“This part is the most relaxing because I get to play the part, take a step back, look at everything, and show people, and everyone comes over and takes photos,” she says.
There is a performance aspect to her work, as Bergmooser is known to get so lost in the work that she ends up covered in paint.
“The best part of the social aspect is that I have gained so much confidence in myself, as a young woman and as an artist,” she shares. “I know that what I do is good because I’ve practiced it, I’ve put in the time and the effort. I know what my craft is, and no one else in the room can do it.”
“I know when I walk into that room, I’m the only person who can do this,” she continues. “I know that people are going to be enamored by it. It’s my job to put everything that I can into it. I’m going to make sure that I’m talking to you. I’m gonna make sure that I make it look easy.”
The worst part, she admits, is having to “let a lot of people down” as her schedule fills up far in advance.
Since going viral online, she has received an influx of requests, but notes that she can only be at one wedding at a time. She has received up to five inquiries about a single wedding date, and while she has an assistant who accompanies her to events, the two-woman team can’t be everywhere at once.
“I have to let people down now and then,” she admits.
A typical wedding package, she shares, starts around $2,500 for local couples in the Detroit area, but the fee increases depending on travel.
The painter shares that, so far, the furthest she has traveled for a wedding is Texas, but she hopes to paint in other countries and continents and bring her practice around the world.
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