The Squidge Games - Mitch and Marge at Haarlem Mill

As a photo and film wedding team, we work together all the time and that is our usual m.o. but due to our adorable little Theodora, we now realise the benefit of doing weddings separately, and that was the plan for Julia & Paul’s big day. Alexandra was to brave it alone in the Derbyshire Dales to photograph this truly unique wedding at Haarlem Mill and I was to do some solo parenting as we thought we weren’t able to get my lovely parents to do some grandparenting.

And that was cool with me as I love my little Smudge, but unbeknownst to me Julia & Paul were pretty damn close to being our personality doppelgängers. One is from Buckinghamshire and other is from South Yorkshire, they’ve recently had a daughter and most importantly they are the best type of people; CAT PEOPLE! Sorry to all our lovely dog people couples (that sounds far more grotesque than I meant it haha) we love you and we love man’s best friend but we prefer man’s reluctant friend. I mean, it’s pretty obvious as our logo is of our late, great inimitable Mabel, the proto-black cat. P&J have even influenced our parenting as they suggested a children’s book on how kids should approach and treat our purry pals and it was genuinely the first book we bought for our new arrival as we will be raising our child in the ways the feline!

So when I found out whose wedding I could be filming (as they were interested in film too) I was a tad disappointed. Flash forward a month before the wedding where the stars aligned, my stellar parents were free to look after their lovely granddaughter for the day. So I was back on the team, ready to film alongside Alexandra.

Here comes our ubiquitous “the styling was ace”, “the best in the business” and “she’s the O.G of wedding styling”. Tara Knott did the styling, but there was a definite Julia and Paul twist, with a combo of turquoise and tangerine and birds of paradise plus the titular couple was featured heavily; Mitch and Marge, Paul’s purry progeny (if you cant tell I love illiteration).

On that note, a first for us, when the guests entered the ceremony room where they usually have to chose a side to sit on, instead the guests had to choose to wear a sticker donning the faces of Mitch or Marge, so Team Julia with Mitch’s mug on it or team Paul with Marge’s Melon on it. For full disclosure, I was team Julia and Alexandra was team Paul, Mitch and Marge respectively.

They also had a nifty idea, no presents but if you want you can purchase fun stuff from a merch stand and I’m talking tote bags, t-shirts and mugs with all proceeds going to charity.

Games at weddings are an odd one with it being mostly a few lawn games, perhaps to keep the kids entertained or a group of adults getting far too competitive. We have seen a lot of competitive chaps getting mighty confused on the rules of croquet and we have seen a very intense game of giant Jenga or two. Or they get largely ignored, acting more as props for the day. Well at J&Ps day they didn’t go by halves and had themselves a Taskmaster style game, it went down well, so much so the first floor and outdoor space at Haarlem Mill became deserted as no one wanted to miss out. So we didn't expect a packed top floor with an actual Taskmaster in a top hat conducting a game straight from Squid Games “Red light, Green light”. As the party called it “Squidge Games!”

I could go on and on about this banger at Haarlem Mill, like the lovely staff, how the barman and I discovered a new species of spider, how I somehow held hands with Paul during the couples shoot, their ace first dance or the life-sized breathing and purring robotic cat but I won’t as I tend to ramble. So I best just wish J, P, D, M and M a long and happy life together. It was a unique wedding, in the best sense of the work.

VIVA LA GATTO!!