They chose Venachar Lochside as the location for their stunning October wedding and Mazz and Alex made all their decisions for the day based on what did or did not spark joy. The bride wore a full purple/ dusky rose ensemble – from her Rosie Red Corsetry dress, painted shoes (which she did herself!) and even her freshly dyed hair. The flowers were a mix of purple and red, to compliment Alex’ tartan, and they had pumpkins all over the place to reflect the season.
“My dress was a nice dusky rose colour with a pale blue top corset to combine the colours in our two family tartans”, she explained. “I also LOVE fairies and fairytales, and my favourite story in the whole world is Peter Pan, so I painted an amended Peter Pan quote on my shoes, and asked Rosie to sew a crescent moon with some stars, and the second star to the right to be bigger than the rest as a reference. We also decorated the wishing well with pages from a fairy story book we found in a charity shop when we went to give notice, and used the same book to make our confetti cones.”
Although they don’t live in Scotland, they chose to marry there as they wanted to be legally married outside, with a spectacular view. Being surrounded by nature was really important to them.They also wanted the day to be a reflection of them, and of bringing their two families together, and Scotland was the perfect place to do that.
Mazz in particular was keen for things to be done quickly and she didn’t want to be treated like ‘the bride’. So, they planned to get engaged at Christmas 2018, and started organising things for the wedding about two weeks before that. They ended up having most of the big things booked before they’d even officially got engaged!
“It became a bit of a game to see how much we could get organised in a short space of time”, she laughed. “It was really important to me to be really hands on, I absolutely hated the idea of being treated like a ‘bride’. We both really enjoyed getting involved with the DIY, and setting up the venue. On the morning of the wedding, I did my own make up and my sister’s hair, I hated the idea of being sat around twiddling my thumbs all morning. Also because we had started out long distance, and our families are all dotted around the country, our two sides hadn’t met before. Everyone was staying at the same accommodation in lodges, so we decided to have a bit of a ‘thing’ the night before as and when people arrived so everyone could meet before the day itself. This meant that we could all catch up with each other and those who hadn’t yet met could meet the evening before, rather than meeting for the first time on the day.”
Planning things quickly worked really well for them, particularly because Mazz soon discovered she was a bit of a magpie and could very easily have gone overboard! “I’m easily distracted, it’s kind of ridiculous. I’d start off looking at colouring in board designs and then boom, I bought a unicorn handbag. His name is Jeffree and he arrived with a horn protector. I also didn’t realise how easy it would be to get caught up in things that really didn’t matter. Like unicorn handbags.”
They did do a LOT of DIY though – from the bride’s shoes, which she painted herself, the colouring-in boards (which were a huge hit with their guests, young and old alike!), the signage, the wishing well, the confetti cones and almost all the reception and table decorations. “It was amazing to see everything come together!”, she said, “It was also lovely to see Alex get excited about things I had no idea he would even take an interest in, like stationery and details! All the things in the lead up to the wedding like making our rings and everything becoming ‘real’. My sister got me Kat’s book for Christmas which was amazing for inspiration, but also really satisfying to tick things off along the way!”
“We really enjoyed planning everything, but I think the most stressful thing was staying focused on what we wanted, and not getting distracted by other things or what other people thought we should do!”
