After nearly fourteen years together, Sam and Kirsteen decided their wedding should feel like a celebration of the strange, brilliant team they already were. The result was part experiment, part party, and entirely their own invention.

The venue came first. The Observatory Science Centre, with its historic telescope domes and hands-on exhibits, wasn’t a typical wedding setting, but it instantly sparked a vision. “When we found the observatory, it became obvious: Space Disco,” says Kirsteen. The idea fused their shared love of cinema, music, and retro design into something between Daft Punk and Barbarella. They filled the space with disco balls, tin foil, silver velvet, and light-up details that transformed the science centre into a glittering, low-orbit dancefloor.

The ceremony took place beneath a 19th-century refracting telescope, led by their celebrant Beth Kirkham, who had spent months getting to know them. “She got everyone laughing and crying, captured our humour and our love, and incorporated readings from science and science fiction to tie it into the day and the venue. One of our favourite parts of planning was meeting up with her three or four times beforehand, sometimes on a day right after we’d been making big decisions or sweating the small stuff. Those conversations were like an oasis of calm: getting us to revisit our history, or our hopes for the future, or our shared passions. It helped us to remember why we were doing it.”

They wrote their vows together, deliberately gender-neutral, to reflect their equal partnership. Friends read from Frances Ha and performed I Want to Be Yours in the style of John Cooper Clarke. Then guests threw popcorn confetti as the couple walked out to Bobby Womack’s Fly Me to the Moon.

The reception was pure science-based fun. Outside, friends launched homemade rockets, while inside, a fog-filled “airlock” tunnel made from a plastic greenhouse and industrial foil served as the entrance to the dancefloor. It was a chaotic build the day before, pulled together by family and friends in a flurry of tape and tin. “We didn’t test it, so it wasn’t until we saw the videos later that we knew we’d pulled it off!” the bride said.

Their friend Rosie made the cake – a lemon drizzle and Victoria sponge stack balanced under a disco ball – and dinner was casual: pizza, chips, Irn-Bru, and Tunnock’s teacakes in honour of Kirsteen’s Scottish roots. “Professional caterers quoted us thousands just for evening food. Sam’s idea to call a local chippy who delivered to the venue saved us at least £1,700.”

Later in the night, the two of them found themselves alone on the dancefloor, and it ended up being one of their highlights of the day.“ We looked around at this brilliant, silly chaos we’d created – the light-up floor, the fog, the tin foil, our matching sunglasses, pints in hand – and it really hit home that even if nobody else had been there, we’d created a day that was totally us”, said Kirsteen.

But the planning wasn’t without stress. Dress shopping, in particular, brought unexpected challenges. “I hadn’t anticipated getting a traditional dress, so I went shopping six months before the wedding and had to pay for a rush order. It still needed major alterations and looked so awful after the first round that I bought some high street backups. Being plus-sized, it was stressful. You can’t just grab something off the rack.”

Finding suppliers who understood their vision wasn’t easy either. “Our local wedding fairs were pleasant but repetitive. We just wanted a bunch of shiny silver shit! Finding Rock n Roll Bride was a breath of fresh air and encouraged us to keep trying.” Many of their props came from unlikely sources – garden centres, Screwfix, anywhere that sold the right kind of sparkle!

Their advice to future couples would be that if your plans are complex, or you’re having a dry hire venue, to get someone to run the show on the day. Not having a coorfinator was their only real regret. Beyond that, stay patient, stay kind, and don’t waste energy on things that don’t matter to you. “To us, what mattered was that we were deciding, ‘you’re a human and I’m a human, we like each other quite a lot, let’s team up and celebrate it.’”