When Middleton resident Bella Peluso was a junior at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, her friend Beth Bucciarelli asked her to create live watercolor portraits at her wedding.
Saying “I do” to her friend’s proposal led Peluso to discover a wonderful new way to use her talents.
Peluso, who graduated in 2024 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in illustration, was just falling in love with watercolors at the time.
“I never liked watercolor, but one of my teachers changed my perspective,” Peluso says.
That teacher, Irena Roman, taught her that you can’t control watercolor, but you need to guide it.
“Letting go of perfection pushed me to become a friend to it, rather than something to manipulate,” Peluso says. “After learning that, it was much easier.”
Peluso’s mastery of watercolor serendipitously aligned with a growing trend of couples hiring artists to paint at their weddings. Rather than give their guests a monogrammed candle or custom chocolate, brides and grooms are hiring professional artists to create live portraits at their receptions, adding an immersive experience and gifting guests with a custom heirloom.
Peluso had a grand time creating live watercolor portraits at her friend’s wedding and was soon approached by other brides to work her magic at their weddings. She organically began building her business from there.
She thought that participating in a local wedding exposition would be a great way to get to know brides, and she was right. After demonstrating her craft at the Danversport Wedding Show in April 2025, the response was so good that she is pretty much booked through the end of this year.
“I still get inquiries from that event,” she says.
So how does she create the portraits?
“People think it’s magical how I do it,” Peluso says. “It’s very instinctual. I don’t think about it when I am painting people. I just paint them.”
While most guests look straight ahead for the portrait session, she occasionally gets a creative request, like a superhero pose. Adding little details and custom lettering to the 5-by-7-inch artworks creates a bespoke keepsake that guests treasure.
Peluso is still feeling out and making tweaks to her business this year. While she says that she can handle around 100 guests herself, she is looking to expand her team and is training a few people.
In addition to live watercolor portraits, Peluso also paints thank-you cards, wedding venues and first homes. She also uses charcoal or oil paint to create portraits of pets and people. She is always thrilled when someone reaches out for a customized piece, especially hyperrealistic paintings that she crafts from photographs.
“Bringing a subject to life through art and paying attention to the small details is what brings a unique touch to each piece,” she writes in an artist’s statement on her website, bellapeluso.com.
The multitalented artist also has an eye for interior design, a second career path that she is pursuing now.
“I don’t regret my illustration degree as it got me to this point, but now I’m an assistant interior designer at a studio in Andover,” she says. “Art and interiors definitely go hand in hand — still very creative.”
She enjoys picking out wallpaper, drawing sketches of the rooms, creating 3D models, picking out fabrics and customizing furniture.
At the end of the day, what brings her the most joy is making other people happy.
“At Beth’s wedding, I painted my friend Dylan and his girlfriend, Amanda. Every time I saw him after that, he would talk about how special the portrait was to him,” Peluso recalls. “Then two years later, they got engaged, and I painted for their wedding — so now they have a guest portrait and a bridal portrait.”