Preserve your wedding bouquet - by tattooing it on your body

During their five-year courtship, Stephanie Covaleski's boyfriend, John Foster, suggested she get a tattoo. Her thoughts: "When he puts a ring on my finger, I will get a tattoo on my body."

He did, and after their August 2013 wedding, the Morrisville resident, now Stephanie Foster, followed through on her promise. The tattoo - her wedding bouquet - covers the right side of her torso, from her armpit to her thigh, strategically placed to be covered with clothing when she wants.

She got it from tattoo artist Pete Zebley, who has created a niche business for brides at Central Tattoo Studio in South Kensington, which he owns with Melissa Montiel.

It was Zebley's unusual watercolor style that kept Foster - and so far a half-dozen other brides since he began tattooing bouquets two years ago - coming back for more: a total of five two-and-a-half hour sessions, costing $3,000.

"It's a way for brides to immortalize that moment beyond photography," Zebley said.

Indeed, it's a more permanent memento than the smushed-bouquet-in-a-book trick. And although wedding bouquet tattoos are becoming common (check out Pinterest), the way Zebley does it - in a "painterly" style that flatters the body - is anything but.

Foster, 32, had never gotten a tattoo, so she allowed Zebley to do just one of the sunflowers from her bouquet to test out the sensation and concept, and she eventually allowed him to do the whole bunch.

She liked that Zebley had been to art school - he's a 2008 graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts - and is known for his free-form representation of flowers.

Individual sittings average three to four hours at $200 an hour. He's currently working with four or five clients on their wedding bouquet tattoos, with at least that many on the wait list, which now runs through the fall.

Clients find him on Instagram, and then email him pictures of their wedding bouquets.

"Lucky for me, they are usually really nice pictures because they hired a photographer for that," he said. They then confer on the scope - how big, how long they are willing to sit, and how much they want to spend.

A couple of flowers from the bouquet can be finished in one sitting. Or, because his style doesn't include any hard borders, the tattoo can be a continual work in progress, and clients can decide to add flowers later.

Cathy Wineinger, 26, had wanted a quarter-sleeve floral tattoo, and after she unsuccessfully tried preserving her bouquet by pressing it in a book, she realized a tattoo of those flowers was the perfect way to commemorate her July 2015 wedding. She traveled from her Asbury Park home for Zebley's artistry.

Her tattoo also is a daily reminder that husband Dan Beam "has been one of the best things that ever happened to me in being an incredibly supportive partner."

So far, she's endured two four-hour sessions, and has one more hour-long session scheduled this month, for what she says is well worth the $1,800 price tag.

Already sporting about a dozen tattoos, Lisa Sung, 28, opted for her wedding bouquet on her right upper arm, completed in one four-hour sitting with Zebley.

"Wedding planning is a process, and my flowers were really special to me," said Sung, of Callowhill, who was married in November. "They are representative of the whole day and what it took to get there. And it's really pretty."