what a lovely idea

Here is a truly lovely idea. This very polite young man is designing his own wedding invitations. He searched the web for images of peonies and came across a line drawing that I had posted when I was drawing and painting a whole series of peonies from the live flowers in my own garden. Here is the original post. And this is the drawing. I kind of like it a lot myself.

Here is some of our email exchange: "I am putting together my wedding invitations. I began by finding images of Peonies, and I stumbled across this image. This was my favorite image of peonies in all of the searching I had done.
I was using it for a design, and it occurred to me that someone had spent a lot of time on it, and I was about to use it without recognition of that. 
That would have been wrong of me.
I'm writing you to ask if there is any way I could use this image of yours. We're running a tight budget, so I can't offer you much for money, but I could put your name/signature on the invite or elsewhere. 
I understand if you would prefer that I don't use your image.
To be transparent: I'm sending out 60-70 invitations, printing the peony lightly on the background, and then using a fancy pen to write over the top. I may or may not use the image for the RSVPs as well, of which there would be the same amount. I've also attached a preview of what I was thinking for the invite."

And I replied: "First let me thank you for contacting me regarding the peony line drawing. I am a professional artist and enjoy sharing my art but it is painful to see how many bloggers or web users do find an image and just use it giving no regard to the original work and expertise that an individual has put into that image. I really do like to get paid for my work, but sadly it seems that original art is not highly valued as a financial commodity any more in our culture.
All that said, I give you permission to use my art for your wedding invitations. I am pleased and honored as to your purpose for this work of mine. These invitations will be lovely I am sure. I made original art invitations for my own daughter's wedding recently and printed them myself on my home printer. " 
Maybe I should have asked for money, but I did inform him that the original finished art is available for sale, framed and sitting here in my studio ready to be a wedding gift from someone who loves this couple.