I will also be doing more Budget Bridal posts. You can see previous posts HERE
------------------------------------
Kirsty & Jamie
Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Where did you meet your Bride/Groom?
We met at school 12 years ago! He was in the year above and totally gorgeous, after much stalking and tactical hanging around after classes we got talking and eventually he asked for my phone number. 7 and a half years later we got married.
When did you get married and where?
We got married at The Vu- Ballencrieff Reservoir in Bathgate- at the time it was quite a new wedding venue and it has totally stunning views across the whole of West Lothian. We both wanted to get married close to home and I wanted somewhere really modern- I have a thing about hotel carpets and hated the idea of them in my photos.
What dress/suit size were you when you got married? (only answer if you want to)
I was a size 16.
What was your experience of finding a dress/suit?
I was only 22 when we booked our wedding and I found going into bridal shops quite intimidating. This was made worse by one shop I went into who essentially accused me of lying about getting married (obviously thought I was just there for fun). I eventually went to a Bridal shop called Gwennes and had the most wonderful experience- the girl was amazing and made me feel so relaxed. As someone who at the time was very self-conscious and fairly unhappy with my body- especially after many failed wedding diets- they made me feel really good in my choice of dress. Even when trying on size 8 samples they tried their best to hold me in at the back and almost make it look real from the front!
Describe your day.
We got married in July and after weeks of torrential rain the sun shone and it was gorgeous. We didn’t have high hopes with it being in Scotland but it was 20 odd degrees and we all got sunburnt! After a fairly stressful morning- in which my sisters dress burst and my 4 year old niece was the only one who could calm me down-we had the most fun and relaxed day ever. Our parents were brilliant and wanted us to have the day we wanted so we had lots of friends and just had the best party of our lives. I wanted the day to be very ‘us’ and did a lot of things ourselves or with lots of help from our amazing friends. One friend made our cake, I spent hours trawling charity shops for china teacups that were part of our centre pieces- we also bought vases from Ikea and had a florist fill them with simple roses and foliage, my bridesmaids helped make favours and my Aunt made the most perfect invites and place names . The ceremony was done by a registrar, we aren’t religious and wanted it to be for us, so we had our best friends give a reading each and laughed and cried (a lot) throughout.
Jamie is a bass player and is very into his music so that was the biggest priority for him- he spent hours compiling a playlist to play during the day and created a list for the DJ to play at night. Ideally we would have loved a live band but it wasn’t in our budget. He even started a fight with the DJ after he played the Macarena followed by the Cha Cha Slide, haha! We had lots of compliments about how unique and personal the music was to us. I walked down the aisle to Here Comes the Sun and our first dance was Dream a Little Dream of Me- two songs we’ve always loved. You can’t have a Scottish Wedding without bagpipes so was had a player who piped us out of the ceremony and into the reception too.
It was important to us that the day was really chilled and people just had a good time. Photos were a big deal for me- I wanted to remember the day (my Dad was a photographer and was always taking photos!). The Photographer was briefed to take candid photos and I was wary of people spending too much time waiting for us so posed photos were minimal. We had throw away cameras on the tables, as well as lots of friends taking photos and loved seeing the day through other people’s eyes.
We finished the day with the traditional ‘Loch Lomond’ by Runrig- the best part of any Scottish wedding!
