After their ceremony at Lothian Chambers in Edinburgh, Will and Rowan hosted a low key reception at St Columba’s by the Castle, which was walking distance for all their guests. In the evening everybody moved on again, this time to The Caves. They chose this for their evening party because it is one one Will’s favourite venues for gigs.
“Right from the beginning we were trying not to make too much of a big deal, which sounds odd but our daughter’s births were pretty much ‘the happiest days of our lives'”, explained Rowan. “Having said that though, it actually was up there as one of the very best. We just wanted a day that would be fun and relaxed so everyone could just have a chat and a catch-up and some nice food and a bit of a dance. Making it a good day for the kids was really important to us too. Part of the reason we chose that church hall was because it had a garden so they had some space to run around.”
“We didn’t really have a theme”, she continued. “Where we needed to choose colours we used navy and pale pink (for the bridesmaid and flowergirl dresses) but we didn’t want everything too matchy. We just chose stuff we liked but it ended up being a mish-mash of some Scottish bits, some spring-y things, with some navy and pink bits.”
Rowan wore two dresses. The first, for the ceremony and reception was from Monsoon which she bought on sale for £40! In the evening she changed into a dress which she bought on ASOS. “I didn’t have a ‘proper’ wedding dress which saved us quite a bit of money”, she explained. “I looked at a lot if ‘wedding dresses’ in magazines and a lot of 50s style ones but it just didn’t feel very me. We also saved a lot of money by making our own invites and decorating the venue ourselves.”
“Will’s Mum decorated the church hall for us, it was so beautiful and we didn’t see it before we arrived for the reception. Will’s auntie and cousin made the favours, which were tiny glasses with chocolate eggs inside. My bridesmaids decorated empty wine bottles and left them on the tables with wee bits of paper and pens so the guests could write wee message to post in them. I bought cheap glass bottles from eBay and daffodils from a gift shop near our house for the ‘centrepieces’.”
“My advice to future brides and grooms would be to use Pinterest!” she concluded. “Also to accept offers of help and try and have fun! Don’t worry too much about things going wrong, and if they do, don’t let it ruin your day. Have a go at making some stuff if that’s your sort of thing. Put yourselves first, but don’t rule out other people’s suggestions. Don’t bother with the stuff that doesn’t mean anything to you (or at least don’t spend loads of money on it!)”
