dods gigs + other things

WOODEND BARN BACNHORY 07-07-07

Sally had never been the sort of girl that dreamed of a white wedding. She had always joked about having a medieval wedding in a castle with a jester and feast. So when we got engaged she jokingly mentioned the idea to me. We laughed at first, but the more we thought about it, the more we loved the idea of a medieval wedding. It was different, fun, and a great excuse for a fancy dress party!

 

We found a great supplier called Clanranald, they do educational work on medieval times in schools, as well as reinactments and extra work for films (they were in Gladiator, King Arthur and Braveheart to name a few!). My ‘Robert the Bruce’ outfit was from them, as well as the Ushers. They also supplied us with some decorations, and 4 ‘warriors’ to do a sword fight on the day. They really added to the feel of things!

 

Sally got her dress from a place called Uptight Clothing (www.uptight-clothing.co.uk – we’re on the web site!). All the dresses are corseted, and it was specially made for her. She chose the design herself, based on one of Uptight’s gowns. It’s amazing and nothing else could have come close, and the up side is she can wear it again! The sleeves come off and the corset is separate from the skirt.

 

Sally read books on medieval times, and searched the internet for various medieval suppliers. We didn’t mind too much if it wasn’t entirely accurate, there were probably lots of bits of the wedding that weren’t correct! We didn’t want to force guests to dress up if they didn’t want to either, so gave them the choice. That said only about 8 people didn’t dress up and they all said they wished they had!

 

We had help from lots of people. One friend is a Theatre set designer, and she did an AMAZING job on the décor. Sally’s parents made table runners, helped with various bits of décor, made two cakes (!) and supplied the wine and champagne. My folks paid for the honeymoon (which was FAB!). A friend of ours did the photography, he did a grand job as you can see from the photos. Another friend ran the bar. We certainly couldn’t have done it without all the help, and we’re really grateful.

It was a humanist ceremony on the 7th July in Scotland. It took lots of planning to get there and help from loads of people, but it all came together and was worth everything. The day itself was the most magical day of our lives. It was beautiful. Big smiles!

We'd hired an arts centre that we would decorate into our castle. We had the day before to decorate it so there was a bunch of us hanging banners, setting out flowers, decorating tables etc on the Friday. It was really fun putting things out with the radio on, after so long planning it was fantastic to see it all coming together. When we left that evening the place was looking great. It was odd to leave and know that the next time we'd be there it would be for the ceremony.

On the morning of the wedding Sally got ready with her Bridesmaids in Banchory (Kayleigh being one of them). She said it was nice being pampered by the hairdresser and make up lady! I got ready in Aberdeen and headed to the venue with the Ushers.

Sally didn’t have a horse and carriage to go to the venue in, but her dad did do up his car with red and yellow ribbons (our colour theme) and coats of arms – it looked great! Sally says that as they rounded the corner towards the venue it was amazing to see a mass of colour on the hillside next to the venue. She said she has a clear memory of passing the guests - all this colour and in the middle was a bright green dragon!

We had a fiddler playing as guests arrived, and then as the bridesmaids led the way up to the guests for the ceremony. Then Sally and her followed. There was a lovely “oooh” and then a cheer as they came striding up! The guests were arranged in a circle with us in the middle. We had planned it that way so that everyone could see us in the ceremony. It was a beautiful ceremony that we had written ourselves, and included parts of paganism and hand fasting into it. It was amazing to hear the words we'd spent so long writing. We loved the fact that we could look at guests and smile at them as the ceremony was going on, we really wanted our guests to be part of the ceremony, and really felt like they were.

We exchanged rings which was really special. Although we had an amusing moment, Sally put my ring onto my right hand!!! So when the celebrant carried on after the exchange I was trying to take it off and put it onto my correct hand! Only a few guests noticed, but the ones that did were giggling along with us! We felt like school kids giggling whilst a teacher talked, it was ace!

Then it was the handfasting, which was a really magical moment for us. We incorporated some pagan elements into it as well, so as we had our hands bound, we had ushers and bridesmaids come up to bless us with the four elements. Again it was so special to have people close to us being part of the ceremony.

It was amazing doing ‘the official’ part. We were so happy, and it was lovely to look into eachother’s eyes and say “I do". Although I said "I most certainly do!" which got a good laugh! Everyone cheered once we were pronounced husband and wife, it was fabulous!

We walked out under an archway of swords, lots of guests stood in a line and held up their swords for us. Guests followed us through and we got to say hi to everyone as they came past. It was nice to greet everyone and give lots of hugs and smiles.

We all headed inside and when we opened the curtains to reveal the main hall there was an 'oooh' when people saw the decor. We had a weapons display in the corner, a coat of arms on the back of the stage, red and yellow hangings, coloured banners. Plus the tables were all decorated and it all looked wonderful!

We did the signing of the register on one of the food tables. We weren't supposed to but the celebrant didn't want the paperwork outside incase it rained, which I guess is fair enough!

Our hired 'warriors' demonstrated on stage how to put on the great kilt, or plaid as it's known. They chose the dragon to demonstrate on! It was a great. After that the two other warriors 'barged' in and started making 'trouble'. There was some brilliant banter between the good and bad ones, which ended in a sword fight on stage. The guests loved it (so did we!) and were all booing and cheering!

After that me and my now wife had photos taken whilst guests got drinks and played with our remote control jousters - those were a big hit!

When the time came around we got everyone seated and did our thanks (Sally still refuses to call it a speech!). It was nice to thank the people that helped us. We'd left wrapped gifts at their tables so as we thanked certain people we got them to open their gifts. We gave engraved glass tankards and goblets.

After that it was FOOD! The caterers excelled themselves, they'd laid out a magnificant spread of wonderful delights from rabbit, wild boar, salmon, it was lovely! Our jester was really good too, very funny. He went around tables as they waited to go up and get their food.

After food we had a disco. The first dance was nice, although we felt a little silly and the song seemed to last for ages, even though it was only 2 minutes long!!! Then the disco kicked in and everyone got up and danced.

We also had a 10 piece ska band play who are friends of ours called Bombskare. Everybody loved them and they had a big encore request at the end of their 2nd set. Sally remembers looking around at one point and thinking "everyone who is left here is dancing to the band" which was really good.

Inbetween the bands sets we had the cutting of the cake. We were going to use the small sword that was in the top of the cake, but ended up using a big one - it wasn't easy to cut cake with!!!

We had lots of fun over the evening, danced lots (Sally says she really enjoyed air guitaring to 'Sweet Child O' Mine' with friends and Kayleigh!). We chatted to as many people as we could but it wasn’t easy to find time. Sally really enjoyed the mead too which we specially ordered in. We made sure that we spent time with each other too, that was nice.

It all finished at midnight, and we were whisked away in our taxi. When we got to our hotel the driver wouldn't take payment. We thought someone had paid him for us and asked who it was - but he just said that he didn't charge bride and grooms on their wedding night! How sweet! (Sally actually gave him a hug!).

http://www.cottersphoto.co.uk/wedding/

www.freewebs.com/upsetter

http://s45.photobucket.com/albums/f67/upsetter/OUR%20WEDDING%20DAY/?start=all

 

          

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more photos at http://s45.photobucket.com/albums/f67/upsetter/OUR%20WEDDING%20DAY/?start=all