Welcome back for Part 2 of this ridiculously pretty, peony festooned day. There are a ton of details packed into these images and Karen’s account of how they all came to be is well worth reading, as she and her mum made nearly every aspect of the decor. Super impressive.
More than a Highland Fling…
Scott’s Canadian but he quite fancied wearing a kilt, however, he wanted one which meant something to him instead of renting a tartan with which he had no connection. We did some research and found a kiltmaker in Stirling who could make him a kilt in Canadian Maple Leaf which is the tartan used by the Canadian Forces Pipes and Drums.
House of Henderson is a family run business and the service we received was outstanding. Mr. Henderson took so much time and care to make sure the whole outfit was perfect.
I gave Scott a set of cufflinks which were made from a vintage map of Toronto. One showed The University of Toronto where we met in September 2001 and the other showed the intersection of Queen Street and Woodbine Ave in the east end neighbourhood of The Beaches in Toronto, where we had our first home together.
When I saw Scott waiting for me at the bottom of the aisle I thought he looked fantastic and I was so proud to be marrying him (but I was quite worried about him in his 8yds of wool and tweed waistcoat and jacket as it was about 26 degrees on the day and the room we were married in was like a greenhouse!)
Scott’s Best Man, Euan (who is also my sister’s boyfriend) wore a Grey Spirit kilt and charcoal tweed jacket which we rented from Slaters. I chose the Grey Spirit tartan to tone in with the morning dress which both of our Dads and Scott’s brother Jason wore.
The pink peonies wouldn’t do for the boys’ buttonholes (there was no convincing them!) and so I chose classic cream, antique rose for the boys in morning dress and a simple thistle for Scott and his Best Man Euan who were in highland dress.
Love Lillian and Leonard
I found our amazing photographers in a completely unrelated internet search. I was blown away by their beautiful photography and was convinced that they would be based on the other side of the world. I was shocked and so excited to read that Lillian and Leonard were in fact based less than 50miles from our home and there was no question from that point on that we would even consider someone else!
We met Cara and Nye in a coffee shop in Glasgow and told them all about our plans. They were so sweet and genuinely interested and this confirmed everything I’d felt when I had first found their website.
When we arrived home from Glasgow Cara had emailed to say that another couple, who knew we were meeting with them that evening had beaten us to the line and had rushed a deposit to them by electronic transfer while we were having coffee! (Our first lesson in the cut-throated-dastardlyness of wedding planning!)
Amazingly they decided that for the first time ever they would photograph two weddings in one weekend. I still pinch myself when I realise how lucky we were that they agreed to do it.
I told Cara (of Lillian and Leonard) that I knew the photographs would be beautiful and surprising and special but when they arrived they were entirely beyond our expectations. Both she and Nye took such care with them and although it’s hard to explain, I feel like our photographs have given us back some of the memories we thought had slipped away in the midst of all the excitement. We can’t thank them enough for the beautiful images they’ve created for us. They are more than wedding photographs really; some of them are works of art.
Cheese and Cake
Our cake was made by my wonderful and immensely talented Mum. It was a gorgeously rich and boozy fruitcake on the bottom, then a carrot cake in the middle (which was entirely devoured on the night and I didn’t see a scrap of it!) and the top was a delicious chocolate fudge cake.
It meant a great deal to me to have my Mum make the cake. She worried and fretted over it for weeks and she drove it ever-so carefully down from our family home in a village just outside Dundee, through country lanes and over the occasional speed bump! It arrived at Gean House safely and was masterfully put together the day before the wedding.
We used champagne ribbon, peals and vintage-style brooches to decorate it and I brought my ‘junk-shop-chic’ theme through by placing a tiny Royal Doulton teacup on the top which was filled with peony blooms.
Our second cake was a cheese cake from J Mellis Cheesemonger in Edinburgh’s Morningside. All of the cheeses were either Scottish or Irish. Unfortunately our beautiful Cashel Blue was a victim of the heat and had to be hurried back to the fridge before it collapsed!
The mice on top of our cheesecake were made for us by Lynn at The Little Mouse Gift Gallery. I sent her a sample of Scott’s kilt and she made a little gold tie and grey jacket to match his outfit. My sister made the bride mouse’s dress from a sample of my dress and I was absolutely delighted with how they turned out.
Fruitful Favours
Our favours were mini jars of home-made jam. I’m originally from Tayside where I can confidently say the best berries in the world are produced! Combine that with my wonderful and very talented Mum’s legendary jam-making skills then we knew we were onto a winner with the favours.
They fit the hand-made theme beautifully and I gave them a vintage, home-spun feel by adding little cloth caps and mini luggage tags which were each stamped with the word ‘Thank You’.
DIY Diva
It was important to me to be on top of absolutely every detail and I wanted everything to gently tone into the hand-made, vintage-inspired theme without being too obvious about it. We had a loose colour palette which influenced our choices but I wanted to steer clear of being too restrictive with colours.
My Mum and I made what seemed like hundreds of fabric love hearts and we used them to decorate the Garden Room where we hung them in all of the windows. They also decorated small mason jars which held candles and they were lit throughout the house in the evening.
We made matching bunting for the top table and our jam favours were covered in the same fabric.
We scoured charity shops across the land for pretty tea cups and filled them with peonies and they decorated the windowsills in the Garden Room as well. The tea pot on the top table came home with me from Canada. It was one of many used to decorate a fundraising afternoon tea which I helped to plan and was a gift from the charity involved.
Our attention to detail even extended to the bottles of water on the tables. We found lovely aqua-toned cordial bottles and they looked beautiful beside the antique mason jars. We even brought our own ice! We found ice cube trays which made sticks of ice and we made bags of it in the weeks before the big day. All the venue had to do was to re-fill the bottle and pop a couple in to keep everyone nice and cool!
Creative Care
Our wedding was special to us because we had a hand in absolutely everything. We kept the vendors down to a bare minimum allowing us to retain the creative control over every aspect of the day. (In a very relaxed and non-bridezilla fashion of course!)
Working on all of the projects with my Mum was very special and we’ve both said how much we’ve missed each other since the wedding, even though we speak nearly every day!
Keeping everything so personal meant a huge amount of work (I’ve estimated the stationery alone took the equivalent of working from 9-5 for three weeks complete.) I wouldn’t have done it any differently though. I loved every minute of the creative process from the initial concepts to tying the very last ribbon!
I’m glad we took the time to really think about the ceremony too. We knew that was the most important part of the day and we spent a long time considering how we wanted to be married. It would be easy to be carried away with the smallest details when planning the ‘party’ but I would advise future brides to think seriously about that all important 45 minutes where you and your fiancé make your vows.
We were advised by a close friend to really take time to think, during the ceremony, about the words we were saying, and to be ‘present’. He was absolutely right, when I took Scott to be my husband I meant every word and it was incredibly powerful to hold his hand and know that this was the person I was going to share the rest of my life with.
Phew!
Just how much pretty can one blogger take?! I’m overwhelmed with the attention to detail here and what really does it for me is the fact that this was truly a DIY wedding without a single suggestion in the photos. Incredibly professional and well done.
Thank you so much to Karen for writing about her day in such detail and Scott for agreeing for her to share it, and massive thanks to Cara and Nye of Lillian and Leonard, who I remain in awe of – such beautiful images.
Yours Truly,
Rebecca
xoxo
