Caryn and Mike’s classy, elegant wedding took place at the breathtakingly beautiful Rowallan Castle in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, Scotland.
After having to postpone their originally planned 2020 wedding and then face the daunting task of uninviting a number of guests because of Covid restrictions in place, the couple’s wedding finally went ahead in September last year. The day was filled with lots of classy greens and whites and considered detail.
Our lovely friends and Love My Dress recommended suppliers, The Gibsons captured these beautiful images. Enjoy!
The Venue
We knew we always wanted to get married in Scotland as my family are from Ayrshire, we looked a few different options but as soon as we drove up through the estate, we knew this was the one. With it being a destination wedding given the majority of our guests were travelling from down south, we wanted everything to be in one place and this was a big tick for us.
The setting, the rooms and the surroundings were everything we were looking for.
Due to covid, we moved our ceremony to the Old Castle on the estate and our reception was held in the stunning Glasshouse Restaurant. We had 40 guests in total for the full day and due to the courtyard ceremony and wedding breakfast location, the whole day felt really intimate and special having our family and close friends there to celebrate with us. We got to talk to everyone!
Katy, the wedding coordinator at Rowallan was absolutely fantastic. Whilst we exchanged many emails, she completely saw the vision I was trying to achieve and made it happen! Her calm nature and attention to detail, made the whole planning experience reasonably stress free.
The Dress
My wedding dress is by Tarik Ediz. The only bridal boutique I visited was Eleganza Sposa in Glasgow. I went with my Mum and both my sisters and had such a lovely experience with the team there. Not only is their shop stunning but the team there were incredible, really patient, knowledgeable and make you feel at ease so quickly. I’d absolutely recommend a visit to other brides if you are from Scotland.
Before your appointment, Eleganza Sposa suggest you look at their website and create a ‘love list’ so your stylist can have an idea of the kind of dresses you have in mind ahead of time. I picked a mix of styles but knew I didn’t want something with a really long train and something to cover my chest or my back as I’m quite self-conscious of both these areas.
The dress I chose was the very last one I tried on- just in case- and I’m glad I did! Whilst I always thought I would go for a classic, simple style, the detail on this dress sold it for me- it just felt that little bit extra special!
My veil was the Grace with no lace style from Eliza Loves in Kilmarnock. I purchased this when I went for my first bridal dress fitting as it was absolutely stunning when I tried on with my dress. It was so light and fine in the cathedral length as I loved it was longer than the train on my dress!
My shoes were from Dune London. I had looked at other shoes but the padding in these ones sold it for me- they were so comfy I wore them all day and night. My hair accessories again was from Eliza Loves – it was a gorgeous porcelain floral hair comb.
I wore Coco Mademoiselle from Chanel. It has long be one of my favourites scents and I wanted to wear something that still felt like me and when I did use, it would take me straight back to this day. My earrings were from Astrid and Miyu and my bracelet was a gift from the bridesmaids from Swarovski.
How They Met
We met whilst I was working as a shop assistant and served Mike as a customer, on my first day on the furnishing fabrics department where Mike was looking for some fabric for an up-and-coming event he had planned for work. The conversation moved from work into flirty banter- an hour later, his friend appeared back at the department with a cheeky note and Mike’s number and that was the beginning!
Mike had arranged a surprise trip to Switzerland for my 30th birthday. The 3-day trip began with a spa afternoon visit to the Burgenstock resort overlooking Lake Lucerne. It was this first night of our trip that Mike got down on one knee to propose and begin the next stage of our lives.
We really wanted an Autumn wedding due to the beautiful colours around that time of year, our birthdays are both in March (Mike’s is the day before mine) so we wanted something else to look forward to as a couple at towards the end of the year and we set our wedding date for October 2020.
Mike wore a 3-piece suit from Reiss.
We brought both our heritages together once the official ‘I dos’ were out the way by sipping vodka from a quaich. Traditionally, this would be whisky however Mike’s grandparents were from Poland and came over to the UK during the second world war, and with my family being Scottish we felt this would be a perfect blend of both families coming together without being too much.
We tailored our own vows using a little bits from different examples. As we begun to write, we both started with different extracts and we decided that the last couple of lines should be the same which felt like a nice way to end our vows, our last line was, ‘And most of all, I will love you with my heart always’.
Our wedding bands were from Antoine Jewellery based in Ayrshire. We both had an idea of the style we wanted and I specifically couldn’t find what I was after, we met Antonine he was fantastic from consultation all the way through to collecting the bands.
Our ceremony music was performed by the wonderful Amarone Music. Siobhan was amazing, she provided some recommendations and playlist for us to consider. We decided on traditional music for the ceremony itself and for the drink’s reception, it was on the more modern side.
Photography
I honestly cannot put into words how fantastic Chantal and Scott are- they make you feel at complete ease so quickly. We were looking for exactly this style of photography and they captured our day perfectly.
Not only from a creative point of view, but their advice on suggested timings and keeping us on track really helped with our planning of the day, they contributed so much more than just a beautiful collection of photos that we’ll treasure forever.
We met Scott of Mackenzie Wedding Films at the Scottish Wedding Show and fell in love with his cinematic style of videography and they felt really personal. His relaxed but funny approach was everything we wanted on the day. We would absolutely recommend a videographer to capture those special moments with family and friends that might be missed.
Bridesmaids
TH&TH – I went for a mix of Cecelia, Phoebe and Athena in Emerald.
I loved that my bridesmaids had different style dresses, it was just as important to me that there were wearing what they felt their best in.
Flowers
We chose a mix of real and faux flowers. Our bouquets, buttonholes corsages and flower girl wand were created by the lovely Amanda from The Floral Design Boutique. Amanda was wonderful to work with, even though we had never met in person until the wedding day, she was so approachable and friendly. We went for a gorgeous mix of white and green classics.
Our other flowers were faux and we worked alongside JAM Events to help bring the rest of our vision to life. We were super conscious of being as sustainable as possible when it came to flowers, the JAM team were fantastic to work with and we had a few sessions with them to discuss how we wanted our ceremony and reception to look.
Our wedding favours were of a small collection of Swiss chocolates as a small nod to where we got engaged.
We sourced some gold cutlery, charger plates and taupe tablecloths for our wedding breakfast, which I feel just elevated it and it was little details like these that made it feel more special. We hired our tablecloths and napkins from88 Events and our cutlery and charger plates were hired from Whitehouse Event Crockery.
We worked with Rosewood Cakes to create our dream wedding cake. Given it was a smaller wedding than we anticipated, they adapted our original choices and made them to a smaller scale. We ended up with a two-tier cake, the bottom was vanilla sponge with cookies and cream buttercream.
The top tier was chocolate sponge, orange curd, vanilla buttercream with chocolate orange chunks and was gluten free for me- sadly, I never did get a slice as it was really popular.
Evening & Dancing
We wanted something that was short-ish to dance to, and then we could get the party going. We finally decided on Beth- Firestone. Her album is a selection of modern, acoustic love songs, I really recommend if you’re keen to steer clear of the cliché first dance songs.
The second song we chose, was Chaka Khan- Ain’t Nobody which got everyone up on the dancefloor and started the night as it went on!
Our evening entertainment was The Soul Establishment. These guys were the absolute best and got the party going! We had so many compliments on the band through the night about how fab they were!
We also had a selfie mirror booth in the evening which was so much fun and both the adults and little ones loved it. It was a little different to the usual photobooths we had seen. Dave from Just-A-Pose was fantastic throughout the back-and-forth of us changing dates.
Words of Wedded Wisdom
Enjoy the whole experience, the buildup and the day! Soak up every moment having all your favourite people in one place.
Look at your venue, what can you utilise and enhance, rather than spending the money because it is on trend for example flower arches are gorgeous however the courtyard in the Old Castle is dominated by the beautiful and majestic 600 year old ‘Marriage Tree’, saying our vows here amongst family and friends felt even more special because of the history behind it.
Trust your gut when you make decisions! I felt really lucky, as Mike wanted to be quite involved in some of the big bits of planning, we spent many Sunday afternoons in a coffee shop chatting everything through- he wasn’t so excited about cutlery and tablecloths but the stationery and ceremony was something we worked on as a team.
My favourite part of the day, was when we went back into the Old Castle after our ceremony and had 5/10 minutes together to enjoy a champagne and just take in the moment, I really would suggest this!
thegibsonsphotography.co.uk
Founder of Love My Dress. Passionate Podcaster and Editor. Annabel lives in rural North Yorkshire with her husband and business partner Philip, their two daughters and menagerie of furry hounds. She loves photography, meditation, walking, being outdoors and star gazing. She is fierce when it comes to championing talent within the wedding industry and when she's not working on Love My Dress, she supports her husband Philip in the running of the family's sustainable flower farm and floral design business, Moonwind Flowers. In 2013, she became a published author.
