This week has been like something from the Kilt Appreciation Club, and this afternoon’s wedding finishes it off nicely!! Rebecca & Charlie had such a pretty wedding in Scotland – Logie Country House is full of light and has been decorated beautifully with white details and wild green foliage. In fact all of the floral decor is just gorgeous, the idea of putting displays under bell jars on top of log slices is genius and looks so effective!
Rebecca is a Bride after our own hearts, she works in the industry and clearly has so much passion for what she does. She fell in love with a stunning Suzanne Neville gown which she had altered and tweaked until it became the perfect gown for her. It really is a breathtaking gown.
Our Story
Rebecca The Bride: Charlie and I got engaged at Dalhousie Castle in April 2012. We were having a wee weekend away and at the end of our stay Charlie had organised a surprise falconry display for us – I studied Zoology and love anything to do with animals and the natural world. The last owl that landed on my arm had a small bag tied to its leg, the falconer passed the bag to Charlie and he got down on one knee in the damp grass and inside was my beautiful engagement ring he had designed himself…
The Venue
We only looked at three venues, Logie House being the third and we knew pretty much straight away that we need not look any further. Back when we visited in 2012 it was still Tim and Stefs family home, Stef straight away offered us a glass of red and showed us around, telling us all their big plans. We even got a shot of their wellies and umbrellas to explore the grounds as it was pouring of rain. Even with so much work to be done and being a brand new venue, we had such a great feeling about them and the location it was an easy decision.
Setting Up
We loved having the venue all to ourselves from the Friday lunchtime right through until late on the Monday morning, we really didn’t want to leave. The Friday was very manic for me and my nearest and dearest, especially me as I am a perfectionist! We put individual gifts and welcome packs into each room. I had scented candles throughout the house and ballroom. I set up a little ‘grazing station’ in the dining room and a wee toiletries area outside the ballroom guest bathrooms with mints, blister plasters, hairspray etc.
Charlie set about putting up a fabulous sign outdoors to direct guests where to go throughout the day on the Saturday. As well as that he had also made lovely ‘Mr & Mrs’ signs to hang on our chairs at the wedding breakfast, he did a brilliant job and they were all in mint green to match the bridesmaids. My girlfriends and mum did a great job arranging some of our own flowers in the house with the wine boxes, vases etc that we brought. Instead of a guest book we had a vase with jenga blocks and marker pens for people to sign. We had printed up poems and quotes meaningful to us and put them in pretty frames all around. I wrote our table plan onto a large mirror sat on an easel. We brought along our own birch trees and other plants in terracotta pots, lanterns, fairy lights, tea lights, the list goes on!
The Catering
We did all of our own catering except on the Saturday, on the Sunday we had planned a fantastic BBQ. The weather was very much against us – it poured with rain the whole day but my mum and family did an amazing job with the food, everyone was extremely well fed and watered. We had board games and the fires roaring indoors and under a marquee in the courtyard Huntly Falconry did a fabulous falconry display bringing everything full circle back to our engagement. Most of our guests had never got close to, let alone held Owls and eagles before, we invited all our guests kids along on the Sunday so it was a real treat for them as well as the adults!
The Bride
My wedding gown was a couture bespoke Suzanne Neville dress called Forsythia from Perfect Bridal Rooms Aberdeen. The whole process went very smoothly for me as I actually work at Perfect Bridal Rooms and I only tried 4 or 5 dresses on! I don’t normally believe in fate but Forsythia had just arrived from London the morning of my appointment and I had never set eyes on it before hand, I really do think it was meant to be.
All my colleagues, especially Fleur, Iveta and Suzanne Neville helped me finalise the adaptations I made to the dress. The only person who came to my appointments was my mum as I had decided to keep it as a surprise for everyone else. I made the tulle detachable train a little fuller and had it start further around the front of the skirt. I made the waistband narrower to mirror the satin edge I added to the neckline. The neckline was lowered slightly and I made the top section completely detachable. For my evening look the train came off and the dress became strapless so I achieved two looks in one and my dress was completely unique to me thanks to all those talented ladies involved.
Although I love putting veils on my clients, with my tulle train it just didn’t work and I kept my accessories very simple as the dress was stunning enough. The girls from work gifted me a beautiful Miranda Templeton hair vine and my bridesmaids gifted me an Alice Temperley lace garter. When I took the train off I just wore a simple off white satin sash. I didn’t want typical bridal shoes and chose a stunning pair of Ted Baker heels with a pastel colour botanical motif.
The Bridesmaids
I did what I always advise others not to do and bought my bridesmaids dresses long before I picked my dress! They were short mint green dresses from Ted Baker with pleated skirts and unusual lace tops, they were perfect for our more relaxed feel with a nod to vintage, by buying them so far in advance I wasn’t too worried about my guests turning up in the same.
Along with their outfits I gave them beautiful mint green silk dressing gowns that had butterfly and flower designs all over. Charlie and I went backpacking for six months before our wedding and I kept in mind the whole time we were in South East Asia that I wanted to get Iona, Rebecca and myself matching silk dressing gowns, finally I found some in a beautiful shop in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
The Groom
Charlie already had a very dashing kilt outfit he bought with money bequest to him when his granny passed. It is a charcoal grey tweed jacket and waistcoat with bone effect buttons and the tartan is Hebridean Heather, the Sporran is also in the same grey tweed. In fact the only pieces he purchased for the wedding were new kilt socks, a lovely stags head kilt pin and a French Connection knitted tie.
The Jewellery
Charlie is very fussy when it comes to watches and jewellery as it’s been his profession for over 20 years, I too worked in the industry for 8 years and it’s how we met and it is fair to say I am equally fussy! Charlie always knew he wanted a Bvlgari wedding ring and in the end he decided on a limited edition rose gold and bronze ceramic B.Zero 1 ring which we purchased on our travels in Singapore. I chose a platinum baguette cut channel set diamond ring from Chisholm Hunter’s Bon Accord store in Aberdeen.
The only other jewellery I wore was a pair of diamond and pear shape pearl studs I previously owned and a diamond solitaire pendant – a gift from my mother on my wedding day. Charlie wore a pair of watch movement cufflinks gifted by a friend and a pocket watch gifted to him by his best man when he was best man for him. Watch wise he wore an amazing rose gold IWC Portuguese Perpetual Calendar watch as his something borrowed from his dear friend and watch collector to tie in with his rose gold wedding band. My mother gifted Charlie a very handsome vintage style Longines watch that he wore the rest of the time and has worn every day since! Since Charlie is watch mad I had the idea of incorporating watch cogs/parts into the groomsmen’s buttonholes and I was really happy with how they turned out, it was very subtle, I threaded the cogs onto florists wire myself.
Charlie gifted his groomsmen, best man Andy and Master of Ceremonies Steven with classic Swiss made dress watches by Tissot and Hamilton, from Chisholm Hunter. We gave Charlie’s mum an elegant pearl pendant and my mum classic pearl earrings, again all by Chisholm Hunter.
The Beauty
I certainly didn’t want the stress of doing my own make up on the day and since my look was so minimal I wanted my make up to be as flawless as possible. Rae Mathieson did the make up for me, my mum and the bridesmaids. I was so lucky to get her as she is frequently booked up for weddings years in advance! My recently qualified close friend Michelle Wilson did the hair for the four of us too. Michelle has won several awards throughout her time in college, including National competitions. I have so many talented friends and it means so much to us more that they were an integral part of our big day. My perfume actually matched my dress as I wore Suzanne Neville Pour Femme, another gift from the ladies at my work.
The Stationery
Again with the stationery we followed the principal of less is more. My very talented friend and bridesmaid Rebecca did all the stationery. The invites, order of service and individual menu cards (which doubled up as name places) were all single cards in the same shape with slightly differing botanical designs all in an off white/grey card. With having a three day wedding we had to convey quite a lot of information so we decided to set up our own wedding website which we directed guests to in the invites, this acted as our RSVP service, designed to be super convenient. It was also a facility to exchange info while we were out of the country and allowed guests to share pictures after the wedding; we used www.gettingmarried.co.uk and found it very straightforward. Most of our friends had never seen a personal wedding website before and found it really novel. I don’t know if the bridal party were quite so impressed with profile pictures we put up of them though!
The Ceremony
My brother Ross played the cello while the guests arrived into the ballroom. We chose Caroline Cormack to conduct the ceremony, we found her online and her official title is an Interfaith Celebrant. Claire Napier a friend of a friend who plays with Kintore Pipe Band piped me in to Highland Cathedral. Caroline offered us to have our ceremony exactly how we wanted it, we met a couple of times before the wedding and emailed back and forth. You could chose to include religious readings and content from any religion if you so wished but we don’t practice any religion therefore she talked about us, marriage and love. We found her to be a great alternative to a humanist or civil celebrant. We wrote most of the ceremony ourselves including the vows and we decided to have a warming of the rings feature where our rings were passed around all our guests for them to silently bestow their good wishes and hopes for us. We thought it was a nice way for everyone to feel involved and included in the service. Even though the rings were tied together with ribbon one of my relatives dropped them which actually ended up being quite funny and kept the mood light hearted and fun. Our dear friend Sarah did a beautiful reading and we were piped out to Scotland the Brave as Mr and Mrs Philip.
The Food
We were in contact with Hudson’s Catering very early on in the planning of our big day they work in association with Logie and we were delighted to use them due to their long standing reputation, experience, flexibility and attention to detail. We chose to source all our own drink for the day with Hudsons providing a bar for the evening. After the ceremony guests retired to the courtyard then when it got to chilly the dining room where they were offered prossecco, a choice of beer, cider or soft drink. It was important to us that guests had a selection so there was something everyone liked. Hudsons did a selection of beautiful canapés, I believe the massive juicy King Prawns with lemon mayonnaise dip were the favourite.
On entering the ballroom we cut our cake, it was made by our close friend Claire Raeper. It had three tiers consisting of carrot cake, Victoria sponge and lemon sponge. We chose the icing to be really simple with fresh flowers between the tiers. We also had a savoury three tier cheese cake garnished with grapes, physalis and figs that we put together ourselves that was served when the evening guests arrived. Guests were offered a glass of Veuve Clicquot Champagne or Single Malt Macallan Whisky as a toasting drink. Red and white wine as well as beer and champagne were on offer throughout the wedding breakfast. With more Veuve offered to all the evening guests on arrival.
We served an amuse bouche of soup in vintage tea cups and saucers that my mum and relatives had lent us or borrowed. We had lots of input and say in the food over all and I ended up designing the trio of desserts, right down to how it would be presented, i.e. serving the sorbet in shot glasses and garnishing it with edible flowers. Poor Gillian of Hudson’s had her work cut out with me, she couldn’t have been more helpful though, as well as looking after the food and service side of things she acted as wedding coordinator on the day bringing all the aspects of the day together and keeping everyone informed.
The Flowers
I am a keen gardener and absolutely love my flowers and had very specific ideas of what I wanted. Our florist was Trina who is recommended by Logie and she was so passionate and made all my ideas come to life and surpassed all my expectations. I gave her a very long list of all the flowers and foliage I liked, my colours were just shades of white and green. It was touch and go whether Trina could source my beloved white anemonies with blue black centres but she delivered and they looked so striking. I had two styles of table centre pieces; large glass bell jars that we had sourced from TK Maxx on log bases with gorgeous arrangements within including white cherry blossom, phalaenopsis orchids, anemonies but to name a few all set in moss, the other were twig trees that had glass baubles with tea lights suspended from them and the same kinds of flowers arranged around and beneath. I decided to use pocket watches as table numbers, something I had never seen before and a nod to Charlie’s love of watches. Table one the clock face being set to one o’clock and so forth. These antique pocket watches were suspended with twine from the twig trees or bell jar handle. I threaded pocket watch cogs and parts onto florist wire which were incorporated into the groomsmen’s buttonholes too.
Our ‘alter’ displays were inspired by an image i had seen on pinterest and I know Trina really enjoyed the challenge of putting them together. They incorporated huge glass vases filled with silver birch trunks and great arching displays of twigs, blossoms and foliage we had hurricane vases with candles on log slices all the way down the aisle.
The Entertainment
When it came to our band we knew we wanted true professionals, we did all our research online, listening to you tube videos and reading reviews and in the end we booked Corra who are based in Edinburgh and travelled up for our big day. We opted for a mix of Ceilidh, rock and pop and a solo saxophonist to play whilst the evening food was being served. They were an eight piece band in total including the sound engineer. The dance floor was never empty and they made such an impression one of my friends has already booked them for her wedding in November 2016.
The Photography & Videography
I did my research online and in magazines for photographers and narrowed down a list of people whose style I liked. I looked at the stands and chatted to some of them at the Aberdeen Wedding Exhibition and for us Donna Murray stood out. At the time she was one of the photographers newly emerging in the local wedding scene and I thought she brought a nice fresh perspective to things. She has a great eye and specialises in the reportage style we love. I can’t stress how discrete, patient and calming she was on the day. We are absolutely delighted with our pictures and we have had so many compliments on them. A videographer was one of the last things we booked we were so unsure whether to book one as we are not comfortable getting our picture taken let alone being filmed but it was one of the best decisions we made as it captured so many aspects of the day we would never have otherwise seen and provides us with so many fond memories. My videographer Katie was recommended to me by Donna as they studied together. Donna and Katie worked really well together and again Katie was so discrete, kind and accommodating.
Advice
Everyone says this but it is so true, try to enjoy every aspect of the build up and the big day itself, without getting too overwhelmed and stressed out – easier said than done! One thing I wish we had done but just ran out of time to do was have a rehearsal for the ceremony. Do get a videographer, think carefully about what kind of photos you want and any particular shots of people/places you might want to include. Make time to have at least a couple of quiet minutes with your other half to reflect after all the excitement of the ceremony and day before your evening guests arrive.