With family flying in from England, Thailand and the USA for their Scottish wedding, Bex & Santi really wanted to make their wedding something special. So they started with having a weeklong event, hosted at Crear, a farm house near Tarbert in Argyll. “We actually got married on 20th January but with our families travelling from all over we rented the house for a whole week (18th-24th) and everyone stayed there with us”, Bex began. “We wanted to spend as little as possible, which ended up being about £10,000 but that did include the rental of Crear for 19 people for a whole week! I think my amazing mother needs a special mention here as she was ‘head of catering’ for the entire week at Crear and did all the menu planning and shopping for up to 30 people every day!”
Bex wore a 1950s style wedding dress from Just Gorgeous Bridal Studio in Crawshawbooth which was actually two dresses made into one. “The dress and the lace overlay top were actually two separate pieces made by different designers.The dress was made by LouLou and the lace top was made by Ellis. I then took the dress and the top to a fantastic seamstress, Natalie Murphy, based in Rawtenstall, Rossendale (01706223132) who carefully beaded the lace top, added some layers of silk organza to the skirt and made various alterations to make it all fit perfectly. Combining two separate pieces and having alterations made by Natalie gave me a unique dress that was exactly what I wanted.”
Despite not having any Scottish connections himself, Santi wore a kilt. Bex’s bridesmaid was her best friend – her dog Luna! “She said she didn’t want a dress and that her beautiful brindle coat was enough of a statement”, she laughed. “But I did lovingly craft her a wedding collar on a new cream lead. Oh and diamanté encrusted name tag!”
With only 29 guests the couple were able to keep things very personal and intimate. “We didn’t send out invites so we asked everybody either in person, on the phone or by email,” Bex continued. “Santi and I made ‘welcome to the wedding’ cards which we left along with some chocolates in all the guests bedrooms and at the cottages where our friends were staying. We also made thank you cards to send out after the wedding and the name tags which we hung on the back of everyone’s chairs for the meal.”
“Because of my love for all things old, a lot of the things I bought for the wedding were from charity shops or antiques shops. The wedding became the perfect excuse to go in every single charity or second hand shop that we passed and to indulge my passion for tea cups! When it came to decorating the room I knew the stunning views would do most of the work but I also wanted to accessorise it with things that I love; mainly teacups, candles, flowers and old photos! The teacups acted as place settings on the tables and we had them filled with champagne for the toasts. The candles were all over the tables and all along the window in about 300 old jars. The flowers were everywhere and really made the room look beautiful, thanks to my talented Aunty Sue!”
“I asked Santi’s family from the States and Thailand to bring some old family photos and we had a whole table to display these on along with photos from my family. We used a large metal birdcage shaped message board to display them as well as old picture frames and a lovely old and tattered photo album that my Mum found in a charity shop. A few old tea pots filled with flowers were placed amongst them and the whole thing not only looked great but seemed like a nice way to include family members who are no longer with us in our special day.”
“The decoration of the room was a real group effort, with all the family being assigned different tasks in the couple of days before the wedding. But it would not have looked nearly as beautiful as it did without the wonderful creative abilities of Ian, my Dad’s oldest friend and the man who gave me away (my Dad passed away in August 2005). He’s done lots of professional merchandising and display work and has a natural ability when it comes to making spaces look beautiful. He worked wonders on the room and transformed the entrance porch, all with things from his own house! He also created the beautiful heart mobile which hung from a beam next to where we stood for the ceremony, again, all from things we already owned. We were very lucky, people often pay a lot of money to have someone style and decorate their wedding venue!”
“My aim for our wedding was for it to be a real reflection of us, not for it to have any particular theme”, Bex concluded. “For us that meant having a great space to spend time with our closest family and friends, a relaxed space where adults, kids and dogs could all be together and celebrate our marriage. Neither of us liked the idea of spending thousands just to hire somewhere for one day. By hiring a big house like Crear we got to spend the whole week together. Neither Santi or I are religious so we knew it wouldn’t be in a church. As for decorating the room for the wedding, well I had lots of ideas and it was always a battle between seeing things or ideas that I loved and trying to keep the expenditure down! I love old things so I knew it would end up having a ‘vintage’ feel and I have a particular love for tea cups so I knew that they would end up featuring! So I suppose my inspiration was just using things that I love and I never set out with the intention of making our wedding ‘different’, I just wanted it to suit us and the kind of people that we are, which I think it did. I did spend plenty of time perusing Rock n Roll Bride of course! I love to see how everybody creates their perfect day, I still love reading it now!”
Utterly gorgeous! Thank you to Bex & Santi for sharing their wonderful day with us today. You wedding was beautiful!
The Gallery
Suppliers
- Photography: Claudia Carter Photography
- Venue: Crear
- Bride's Dress: Just Gorgeous Bridal Studio
- Bride's Shoes: Belle Paradox Tiger
- Bride's Headpiece: Halo & Co
- Groom's Attire: Scotweb
- Cake: DIY
- Flowers: DIY (Aunty Sue)
- Band: Archie McAllister and his Ceilidh band