“A soul mate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks.”

That was how Victoria and Kai (AKA ‘The Ginger and the German’) chose to begin their ceremony, as her mum Christine read an extract from Richard Bach’s famous romantic novel, ‘The Bridge Across Forever’.  

It was a very fitting start for a couple who started out as friends. They’d never imagined for a moment that they’d become romantically involved – or at least not until the the 31st of December 2015 when they found themselves standing on Edinburgh’s North Bridge, drinking Prosecco out of Disney printed paper cups, and watching the New Year fireworks light up the night sky over the Castle.

As they hugged each other over the bells and bangs, Victoria yelled at Kai, “2016 is going to be YOUR year!” 2015 had been tough for both of them, but Victoria could never have imagined at that moment just how bright their future was to be.

As I told their families and friends, “it was like a chemical reaction. They suddenly realised they couldn’t spend more than a day apart from each other. They started dating; went out for endless dinners, cocktail nights, had cosy movie nights in and genuinely chatted for hours and hours and got to know literally everything about one another. It was then that they both started to realise that it was the beginning of something truly different; this was the ‘real deal.’”

In his spare time, Kai is a pilot, and on the 29th of September 2020 he chartered a small plane and took Victoria for a flight over the North Bridge and Edinburgh Castle, where their journey had begun almost five years earlier.

Grabbing a ring box from behind her seat, he asked her to marry him, to which Victoria replied with “yes, obviously!!” Followed by, “wait… how are you flying this thing and proposing at the same time?!?!” 

In their eight years together, Kai and Victoria faced more than their fair share of heartache, which is why they invited their fathers, Julian and Frank, to light candles to the memory of the people they’d loved and lost. A candle ceremony is a lovely way to take a moment of quiet contemplation during a wedding; it acknowledges that those we love are always with us, because we hold them in our hearts whether we see them or not.

Victoria’s sister Amy’s reading was another reminder that “love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion“, as Louis de Bernières has Pelagia’s father say in Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.

That doesn’t mean there’s no place for excitement in a marriage ceremony though, and Kai and Victoria decided to heighten the emotional power of their promises by keeping them a secret until the day.

As you can see from these great photos by Fraser Young, it was a very moving ceremony.

When she sent them to me, Victoria said, “We just wanted to say thank you SO much for conducting our ceremony! We’re still on an absolute high from it all and you honestly put us both at ease, before, during and after – keeping us right and letting us know the little tips and tricks.“

One of those little tricks is to know when I need to get out of the way so the photographer can take my place. Your photographs will remind you of that special moment for the rest of your lives, so I always make a point of ensuring that your image makers get the shots you will treasure forever.

She and Kai also wrote me a lovely review on Your Scottish Wedding.

Among other things, they said,

“We felt slightly overwhelmed at first at writing our own ceremony at first but it genuinely was one of the best things we have done together as a couple and Tim was always on hand via email to answer any of our questions when we were unsure of anything!

Even down to the actual wedding day itself; Tim came out to meet myself, my dad and my bridesmaids and just calmly explained the final few steps because, believe it or not, after 2 and a half years of planning a wedding, your brain goes to actual MUSH when you’re about to walk down that aisle!! 

But Tim was there, calmly giving us all the final brief on everything before we all walked down the aisle. Then, during the ceremony, hearing Tim read the ‘Story of Us’ is something we will never ever forget, he just animated it so well and just brought it to life to our wedding party.

Literally everyone in our wedding party couldn’t stop saying how much they enjoyed Tim’s delivery and how much they enjoyed the ceremony as a whole!

We couldn’t recommend Tim enough, go book him and have an epic wedding day like ours! 🙂

I couldn’t ask for a nicer compliment, Victoria and Kai; thank you so much! Thank you for allowing me to tell your story, and thanks to to Fraser Young who captured the spirit and the emotion of the day so brilliantly!