I’m in love with this wedding. It’s bright and joyful and colourful and… well, it’s everything. Jimmy and Aaron are gorgeous. Their photos show a love and tenderness which is just adorable. Their day is relaxed and fun, playful and full of special moments which are making me smile back at my screen. The venue is very quirky. Aaron and Jimmy are a super relaxed couple, very much in love and asked their guested to dress in the LGBTQ+ flag colours and they did not disappoint. The outfits and shoes were just wonderful, as you will see. It was a wonderful colourful wedding. I always like to begin a new month with an amazing wedding, and today’s makes me SO happy. I do hope you love it too!

Because of the pandemic, Aaron and Jimmy’s images were a team effort, as their original photographer, lovely Shell at Rose O’Toole Photography, had to self isolate. So their photo editor was Rose O’Toole Photography, and their photographer on the day was associate shooter Emma Shaw Photography. Emma stepped in to associate shoot at 24 hours notice, and the images are just wonderful and so full of love!

 

Wedding photographer’s website

http://roseotoolephotos.com/

How did you choose your photographer?

We did a Google search of photographers around Cambridge. We found Shell’s website and we immediately fell in love with her style of free and easy photography. It was really fun, natural and exactly what we wanted

Were you pleased with your wedding photographer? Do tell… we love a brilliant review!

We loved having Shell as our photographer. Right from the first email, she was fun and most importantly, replied immediately. Whenever we had a problem or query, she was on it straight away. She was also uber prepared, with lots of contingencies (especially for Covid issues), which really put our minds at ease.

She sadly couldn’t be our photographer due to Covid, but again, due to her amazing prep, her friend and colleague Emma stepped up and filled in for her and did a fantastic job in Shell’s place. Shell’s editing of the photos was fantastic and captured our day fantastically for us.

Start to finish, Shell has been, hands down, the best we could’ve hoped for and we are so lucky that she said YES! to us!

Videographer details if applicable – and any thoughts for other couples about having a wedding video?

Due to the pandemic, we had a lot of family and friends who couldn’t come from overseas, including Aaron’s dad in New Zealand. A few people as well, couldn’t come due to mixing in big crowds which was understandable. In order for as many people to be a part of the day, we hired a live streaming company. Everyone around the world was able to watch in real time and online afterwards and leave lovely messages for us. We were also able to save the stream to rewatch later as well. It wasn’t the same as having everyone there, but it was the next best thing. The only thing you had to worry about was saying something you shouldn’t whilst being mic’d up!

https://www.wedding-live-streaming.co.uk/

Tell us about your venue – what made this place special for you?

The Missing Sock in Cambridge fit the bill for us. It was exactly what we were after in a venue. We’re not formal or tied to any wedding traditions (unless they’re legal requirements!) And The Missing Sock is such a fun and quirky venue, with a laid back environment, which you can easily adapt to suit your wedding needs. Crucially, it had a huge outdoor area which catered to our Pride festival theme wedding, but plenty of indoor space for the night time and in case of our unpredictable British weather!

The staff were genuinely lovely and made the day a breeze! All of our guests had an amazing day and loved the venue.

Did you love wearing your outfits? How was the dress / suit shopping experience?

Our outfits were the BIGGEST headache of the entire process! It was only 3 days before the wedding that we were finally happy with what we were wearing.

We had so many ideas in our head that either didn’t pan out or were way too expensive, but we got there in the end. I think people mostly loved our shoes from the entire outfit!!

Did you hire a florist? Tell us about any floral amazingness

We didn’t hire a florist, instead we did our our floral arrangements. We got over 100 beer bottles, scrubbed them clean and filled each one with a single Gerbera flower and some fairy lights. We placed these around the venue and the effect was simple, but beautiful, especially at night.

It was a relatively inexpensive, but time-heavy solution.

Did you hire a wedding planner?

We planned about 90% of everything ourselves, with the help of the venue staff, especially Sarah at The Missing Sock. We managed to plan the wedding on a spreadsheet that I created and updated at every step of the way.

As cake lovers here at English Wedding we’d LOVE to know who made your cake, and how delicious it was?

Our cake was spectacular! We used Becky’s Cake Bakes in Cambridge as her designs are out of this world! That helped because we’re both sci-fi nerds and our cake design was based around our solar system! Right from the start, Becky was up for the challenge we set her of creating, and was so adaptable through the whole joyed

The cake was AMAZING, both in taste and design! The cake topper of the two of us was, spot on! Each layer was beautifully light and gorgeous!

https://www.beckyscakebakes.co.uk/

Tell us about any special personal touches, or creative projects you made yourselves

All of our decorations for the venue were decided and executed by us. We were so proud of ourselves by the way everything looked and flowed on the day.

We had quite a large planning spreadsheet which helped us with planning and budgeting that we created and updated over the entire process

Did you personalise your vows or have any wedding readings? What were they?

To be honest, this is the part that we were both slightly dreading. Standing in front of all those people and taking the final step in getting married. We kept it short and simple and read the prepared vows! The registrar was AMAZING! She kept the proceedings light and fun and interacted with us and the guests, which put us both at ease, which is exactly what we wanted.

What was your first dance song? Why did you choose it?

We adamantly didn’t want a first dance! We hate dancing! It was a conspiracy between my niece Evie and one of two of the best men, Tim and Stuart that surprised us with a first dance to George Michael & Mary J Blige – ‘As’. We didn’t choose the song, but as first dance songs go, it is a pretty amazing first dance song. We danced awkwardly and had fun at ourselves doing it, but it did mean that people were then dragged on to the dancefloor with us pretty quickly and got the night going, which didn’t stop until 2am!

How did the pandemic affect your wedding plans? Do you have any advice to share with couples planning their weddings right now?

We luckily only had to postpone our wedding once by 4 months. We managed to arrange our wedding via a very large and complex spreadsheet that we set up. We kept track of our spending, key dates for payments and a to-do list.

Do something while you can and have time to do it without being stressed. Don’t think “Oh I can do that later’ as ‘later’ will arrive a lot sooner than you think!

Make sure you have a clear idea in your head as to what you want and then allow for that not to be logistically or financially possible and then find a way around it. Other people may have a different and alternative way of doing things that you may not have thought about.

Don’t let others railroad you into doing something you don’t want to do. We made that mistake for a few things and cost us time and money.

What really helped us was going to a brilliant wedding 4 weeks before our wedding and creating a list of all the things that we hadn’t thought about and how we could tailor it around our wedding theme. We were very fortunate that happened for us, but it’s not always possible!

Favourite wedding suppliers

Photographer – Rose O’Toole Photos
Venue – The Missing Sock in Cambridge
Cake – Beckys cake bakes
Confetti – Dollz Confetti
Bespoke shoes – Embassy London
Entertainment – Max Marcus
Live streaming – Wedding Live Streaming

Max was a brilliant DJ and MC. He was really enthusiastic about the way the sound should be set up, the lighting for maximum effect and then the added extras like the amazing selfie-mirror that our guests loved and gave us extra photo memories on top of the official photographer.

Max has a library of music that you’re able to go through and create your own bespoke playlist, which he was able to use and do a fantastic mix on the night and kept everyone in a fantastic mood.