Adrienne has always been fascinated with paper; always doing stamp projects, making cards for her many pen pals, and practicing handwriting, calligraphy and art. Her 8th grade science project was “Can I make paper out of trash?” using lint from the dryer, she did make some soft cotton paper, for which she won 2nd place!
But it was while working for a computer consulting firm in June 1993 that she realized she could do much, much more. She started as a receptionist, doing general office work at first. After a few months, and as luck would have it, the boss asked her to learn PageMaker so she could start doing some in-house graphics and marketing materials. Soon she was hooked, taking any graphics courses she could find at local colleges, and picking up Photoshop, Illustrator and starting what would become a vast collection of fonts and graphics.
By 1994, she was doing various flyers and mailers. And friends starting asking for help in doing brochures for their businesses and other marketing materials. January 1995 turned out to be a turning point, when a long-time friend asked her to do a wedding program for her upcoming wedding. That was it, she was hooked on all things weddings. She began doing programs for her church and then various local churches began referring her as well. And when her own wedding came around in 1997 she was thrilled to be able to do everything from the invitations to the favor tags.
The internet was just beginning to take off during this time and her managers asked her to start learning web design and html. So as her practice site www.custom-programs.com was born. The business quickly took off and in 2004 she quit her job to make Custom Programs a full time endeavor. It is currently owned & operated full time (and sometimes after hours too!) by Adrienne and her husband, Chris. Even their 3 children sometimes help out while on school breaks, putting together sample packets and lacing ribbons!
The site and company have undergone many changes throughout the years, adding products and services as the customer demands better quality and faster service. The latest one being the company name change just this past spring to Cherish Paperie. Adrienne still enjoys working directly with her customers and giving them the personal service some of the larger stationery companies no longer offer. She continues to bring a passion for the wedding industry and everything “pretty” and is always looking for ways to add services and grow the company.
