Our wedding toast video from celebrity "friends"
If you spend any time on social media, you’ve probably seen ads for the celebrity video shout-out company Cameo. (By the way, just at the top I want to make it clear that this post is not sponsored by or affiliated with Cameo. I’m just telling you how I used Cameo for some fun during my wedding season.)
Some people roll their eyes at things like this, but the first thing I thought of when I first heard of Cameo was, that would make a funny video toast for our rehearsal dinner. So, a couple of months after Aaron and I got engaged (you can read that story here) I started scrolling through Cameo’s website to see who was available (and affordable - sure, it would be great to have Brett Favre toast to our marriage, but I don’t have $500 for that). I thought it would be hilarious to have a video compilation of wedding toasts from, as we told our guests at the rehearsal dinner, “our close personal friends who couldn’t make it to the wedding.” My group of friends and Aaron’s group of friends are pretty different, and there’s no way they would all be fans of the same people, so I just went a little wild and started requesting Cameo videos from a hodge-podge of random celebs.
Aaron is from Seattle and he and a few of his groomsmen are Seahawks fans, so I started with Tyler Lockett. He made us a really good video and got back to us quickly! Once I had that first good experience, I couldn’t wait to book more videos. We got videos from a few more football players - Dan Vitale (Green Bay Packers), Austin Carr (New Orleans Saints), and Justin Jackson (LA Chargers), who were all alums of Northwestern University like my husband and several of his groomsmen.
I zigged from football players to random TV personalities I love and who I knew my friends would get a kick out of seeing - Spencer Pratt from “The Hills,” Grizz from “30 Rock,” Allisyn Ashley Arm (Heather) from “AP Bio,” Talan Torriero from “Laguna Beach,” Clayton Snyder (Ethan Craft) from “Lizzie McGuire,” Janelle Pierzina from “Big Brother” and “The Amazing Race” - and I went hard on some 90s nostalgia - Thomas Ian Nicholas from “Rookie of the Year” and “American Pie", Danny Cooksey (Budnick) from “Salute Your Shorts,” David Lascher (Ted) from “Hey Dude,” Matt Doherty (Averman) from “The Mighty Ducks,” Richard Karn (Al Borland!) from “Home Improvement.” I also grabbed Cameos from some of the U.S. cast of “Love Island” - those were just for me, haha.
Probably my favorite was a video from Ashley Parker Angel of O-Town, who I’ve also seen on Broadway in “Wicked” and “Hairspray.” Like, I love APA so much. And he NAILED IT with his video. He even sang “All or Nothing”… !!!!! It was the best money I’ve ever spent.
We didn’t tell anyone what we were doing while we collected the videos over several months. My future husband was skeptical up until he started editing the video together and adding clips of the people in the videos, and then he had a blast. At the rehearsal dinner he introduced the video as being from our “close personal friends” and then once people started realizing what was happening it was awesome. There were some good laughs and everyone was asking us how we pulled it off. So now everyone knows my secret! Here is our video:
My tips for using Cameo:
Keep an eye on the “New” page. Often you can catch someone when they’ve first joined the site and their rate is much cheaper (they are probably trying to do a few videos and get a few reviews before they raise their price - it may even be a Cameo policy, for all I know). For example, Spencer Pratt’s rate doubled after I got a video from him. Some of our videos cost just $10 because we jumped on them right away.
In your booking request, you have 250 characters to let the person know what you want them to say or do in your video. Be specific about what you want - you only have one shot - but be thoughtful and remember that these are humans, not circus animals. Don’t ask them to do anything weird or degrading or say anything terrible. (FYI: They can turn down your request.)
What do you think of our video? Would you ever do something like this? Have you gotten any amazing Cameos? Let us know!
STORY & PHOTO CREDITS
Written by Christina Morse
Video editing by Aaron Morse
Wedding photo by Lexi & Matt Photography, LLC, of Orono, Maine, http://www.lexiandmatt.com. Copyright 2019 by Lexi & Matt Photography, LLC. All rights reserved.
