Hello lovelies! I hope you’re all well and enjoying your week. I have a gorgeously intimate wedding to share with you today; the first of two marriage celebrations for the bride and groom.
The second took place in the bride’s home country of Australia earlier this year and today’s celebration was a low-key yet stunning affair in the grooms home city of Glasgow. So, let’s meet the happy couple, shall we? Bride and groom Lara and Johnny, who both work in advertising, were married on 9th October 2018 at the Glasgow City Chambers, followed by a reception at traditional Scottish restaurant The Bothy in the West End of Glasgow.
“I’m from Melbourne in Australia, which is where we both currently live. We chose to travel to Scotland for our wedding, as it’s where Johnny’s from and where his parents still live now. It was an intimate wedding with only our parents and a small handful of close friends.”
Images by Ceranna Photography
“I love old Hollywood glamour, so that really inspired my bridal look on the day. Both Johnny and I love art deco so we also wanted touches of this as well. The largest inspiration though was the country we were actually getting married in. We wanted the wedding to feel very Scottish, which we achieved mainly through our choice of location and flowers.”
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“My mum Rosie Sands is a couture dress maker and made my wedding dress and my bridesmaid’s dress. I know how incredible she is as what she does so I gave her complete freedom to make it. My shoes were Miu Miu via Net-A-Porter and I wore a gold crystal headband from a boutique designer store called Christine’s in Melbourne. My earrings were Swarovski and my bracelet, a beautiful gift from a friend of mine, was from Tiffany & Co.”
“Johnny and I met in 2013 during the Spring Racing Carnival, a major horse racing event in Melbourne. We started dating shortly after that and it wasn’t long before we both knew we’d found ‘the one’. We got engaged in April 2018 in Torquay, a town on the Victorian surf coast around an hour from where we live and a place we spend a lot of time at.”
“We spent the day at one of our favourite beaches and when Johnny got down on one knee and proposed, I was super surprised, especially as he was in a moon boot at the time with a broken foot! We were only engaged 6 months before we got married. Getting married in Scotland wasn’t the original plan; we had actually booked a venue in Australia before we found out important family members wouldn’t be able to travel.”
“Given we were married in the Clyde Suite and the City Chambers, there wasn’t really an aisle, however my dad did accompany me into the suite to The Sony Wonder version of Across The Universe.”
“The Diamond Guys made both my engagement ring and wedding band. Johnny designed my engagement ring himself and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen! Johnny’s ring was made by a friend, who is a goldsmith. He wanted his ring to look like a block of lego…and that’s exactly what he got!”
“We couldn’t possibly get married without them so we added our Scotland wedding into the mix. Scotland was wedding number 1 and was the intimate and legal part of our celebrations, and wedding number 2 will be the big party back in Australia in March 2019.”
“Johnny and his best man, who is also his brother, both wore a kilt in their family’s Buchanan tartan.”
“We had Anna from Ceranna Photography photograph the wedding and she was amazing, I’m so glad we chose her to capture the day.”
“The photos were so important to us, especially as it was the one and only time our two families from opposite sides of the world would be coming together. I wanted a ‘fly on the wall’ style of photography to capture the day naturally and that’s exactly what Anna did.”
“She was warm, friendly and eased our nerves in front of the camera. The photos came out better than I could ever have expected I only wish I knew more people getting married in the UK so I could recommend her to them!”
Following the ceremony, the newlyweds and their guests headed to the reception venue for a wedding breakfast catered by The Bothy.
“The Bothy have an amazing private dining room space that didn’t really need much in terms of additional decoration.”
“The only thing we added was our beautiful centrepiece and wedding cake table flowers. The candles and other decorations were all supplied by the venue themselves.”
“Our florist, Posies and Pots, was a recommendation from the venue and I’m so glad they told us about them as the flowers were amazing! I wanted them to be quite different to those we’ll have at the Australian wedding, so we went for a lot of Scottish florals including Sea Holly (a favourite of Johnny’s dad).”
“I’m allergic to most flowers and sensitive to strong fragrances but Posies and Pots were wonderful in catering to this and made sure to source all hypoallergenic flowers. They organised the bouquets, lapel flowers and corsages, as well as the flower arrangements in the reception venue.”
“One of Johnny’s mums’ friends made our wedding cake for us. It was a three-tier classic Victoria sponge with marzipan and white icing. It was decorated in the style of a Charles Rennie Mackintosh stained glass window.”
“The only on the day stationery we had were the menu’s which were again provided by the venue, and our wedding favours were boxes of handmade chocolates and Scottish tablets. One of Johnny’s mums’ friends made these as well.”
“Choosing my favourite part of the day is such a hard question to answer! I have so many amazing memories of the day.”
“From getting my hair and make up done by Nicky and Amy from AMM Team whilst sipping champagne and eating chocolate truffles with my best friend, mum and dad, to the beautiful and impromptu speech my dad gave, it was all fantastic!”
“I also loved dancing around the dinner table to Katy Perry’s Roar at the end of the night! However, probably my absolute favourite part of the day was seeing Johnny for the first time whilst I walked into the ceremony on the arm of my dad.”
“Seeing Johnny’s reaction, which was tears, was beautiful and something I’ll never, ever forget.”
Words Of Wedded Wisdom
“Remember to spend time with your partner and really soak up the day together. You get so caught up in ‘working the room’ and making sure you see and chat to all your guests that the day goes so quickly and so much happens. It’s really important to make sure you spend time with your new husband or wife and enjoy your big day together.”
“That’s the same advice we were given by so many couples before our wedding day and it really did make a difference. We made sure to enjoy the day with each other and savour all the little moments together. The next day we even commented that we were so glad we were given that piece of advice.”
“When it came to a wedding budget I really didn’t know where to start. However what I did do was pick 2-3 things that were most important to us and the 2-3 things we could do without. Fashion, photography and food were the things most important to us, and the things we decided we could do without were cars, music (we just used a Spotify playlist and the venue’s speaker system), and additional decorations.”
What a gorgeous day – a big thank you to the happy couple Lara and Johnny for sharing it with us, and to Anna from Ceranna Photography for the beautiful photo’s.
Until next time…
Much love,
Holly x
Credits & Thanks
- Photographer - Ceranna Photography
- Venue - Glasgow City Chambers and The Bothy
- Wedding Dress - Rosie Sands
- Shoes - Miu Miu via Net-A-Porter
- Hairpiece - Christine's
- Accessories - Swarovski and Tiffany & Co
- Bridesmaid - Rosie Sands
- Florist - Posies and Pots
- Catering - The Bothy
- Stationery - The Bothy
- Rings - The Diamond Guys
- Hair and make up - AMM Team
Holly Grocott View all Holly's articles
Holly loves nothing more than getting her fill of beautifully styled weddings and couple's individual stories. After living in London for 6 years, she's now moved back North and settled in the leafy suburbs of South Manchester with her husband and much-loved pet pooch. You'll mostly find her reading in a corner, writing or creating a moodboard (or five).
