Our Scottish Castle Wedding - Part One

In the first of a series of blog posts about our Scottish wedding, I will be talking about the morning of our big day. Very fitting timing as Simon and I have been legaly married three months today!

Simon and I got married legally in London at Stoke Newington Town Hall before the big Scottish wedding. If you'd like to read more about our legal ceremony

click here

to have a look at that blog post. The reason we wanted to be legally married before coming up to Scotland is so we could create a really personal wedding ceremony for the main day, that wouldn't have been as easy with a registrar or vicar. This way we were able to have one of our best friends marry us and tailor make our perfect day.

Me, my mum, my bridesmaids and my niece who was our beautiful flower girl all got ready together in my sister's bedroom in the main house. The wedding party were lucky enough to have the house and the cottages in the grounds to stay in for the weekend, I think there were around 30 of us staying together which lead for a pretty hectic but very fun atmosphere the morning of the wedding.

I ended up doing my own hair and makeup. To be honest, I never really thought about hiring anyone to do those things for me and it was so lovely to sit on the floor with my bridesmaids all sharing hair and makeup tips together. We all chipped in to help each other out when we needed it, I certainly needed a lot of industrial strength concealer after spending a week setting up the wedding!

It took us a pretty good amount of time to get ready (three hours shhhh!) we took it slow and decided not to rush through the process. I put together some little gift bags for them all which included some presents that I had bought for them during the year of planning the wedding as well as some gifts from some really lovely brands that I have worked with in the past. I'm very fortunate to be able to work with like-minded companies and I was really fortunate to have the opportunity to give some lovely presents to my bridesmaids because of this little blog! Putting together the goody bags with a mix of touching presents I had collected together with some generous offerings from brands was a really fun project. I spent the day before the wedding wrapping everything up and writing my bridesmaids thank you cards ready for them to open.

One of the more memorable moments was me rushing off to the bathroom with my mum for me to begin putting on my wedding gown. It was a really special moment between the two of us and I made sure that my bridesmaids stayed in the other room so my mum and I could have some time alone. We just about held the tears back!

It was at this point that I started to feel nervous. Once my makeup up and hair were done and I started to get dressed I realised that soon I would be walking down the aisle to Simon once more. I remember walking out into the main bedroom to see my bridesmaids looking completely gorgeous, the excitement and nerves really hit me then. They helped me attach the ribbons to my bodice as well as my cathedral length veil, I felt very special indeed. The old corny saying is true, I really did feel like a princess (or maybe even a queen). The design of my dress and all the pieces I had chosen to wear really helped the regal feel of the wedding and the beautiful setting of my sisters castle was just so perfect.

The two star headbands I wore were very kindly lent to me from

Tilly Thomas Lux

, my veil was made by my mum's friend Jean. My dress was bought from

Kathryn Trueman

and was designed by

Claire Pettibone

- my favourite wedding gown designer. My amazing shoes, with a silver sixpence tied onto them cutesy of my mum, were by

Emmy London

. I also wore a pair of vintage diamond earrings from my mum and a few velvet ribbons in my hair to complete everything!

After a final check in the mirror and a thumbs up from my mum hinting that the guests were starting to enter the ceremony room, it was almost time to head downstairs for our grand entrance. I remember popping my head out of the window and seeing everyone enjoying a glass of champagne in the sunshine knowing that the next time I saw them I would be walking down the aisle.

While my mum headed downstairs to let Simon and his groomsmen know that we were ready my bridesmaids and I headed into the library to have a little boogie to our favourite Destiny's Child songs. This nod to our long years of friendship really helped me shake the nerves off and it was so fun to have some time together dancing like silly idiots!

After around 15 minutes it was time for us to head down into the ceremony room and get married. The next blog post will feature everything to do the ceremony. I can't wait to write that one as Simon and I completely designed a bespoke ceremony to perfectly suit our personalities. It was a really fun process and I'll be sharing all those details with you including our readings and music choices.

I also can't wait to show you the pictures of the ceremony room, I know I'm biased but I'm pretty sure it was the prettiest room I have ever seen anyone get married in!

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One last thing to mention before I go is this little mini gift guide I have below in case you're planning on getting married and would like to treat your bridesmaids to some lovely presents. I had a selection of gifts from

Not on the High Street

as well as some lovely things from two of my favourite brands

Nathalie Bond

and

Yawn

. I wanted to gift my bridesmaids some items that would help them feel pampered and relaxed so it was a really mixed bag of luxury skincare, snacks and comfortable lounging gear! Thanks again to the wonderful brands who were kind enough to send me some presents to give to my bridesmaids, they all absolutely loved them.