CITY VIBES AND CEILIDH NIGHTS
Led by their city centre venue, Bethany and Dan’s classically styled (with a hit of colour!) spring wedding was every bit as romantic as it was rainy.
It was New Year’s Eve 2016. Daniel made a pact with his mates that this would be his last new year as a single man. Little did he know that less than 12 hours later, he would match with Bethany on eHarmony.
They struck it off immediately and have talked every day since, without fail. For their first date, Daniel took Bethany on the Emirates Air Line cable car in London, followed by dinner and drinks at the O2. As the night drew on, they sat closer and closer together, talking about everything from their colourful dating history to their hopes and ambitions. Daniel remembers thinking at the end of the night – “This girl is pretty amazing”.
He proposed at their home on a Friday evening in January last year. Daniel told Bethany all the reasons that he loved her and wanted to spend his life with her. After a few tears and kisses, she said yes!
Bethany had been planning her wedding on Pinterest for years (since long before she met Daniel!), so they had a good starting point. As they, and so many of their guests would be travelling to Scotland for it, they knew they wanted a venue in the city centre. When they walked into the main “Supper Club” room at 29 Glasgow, they fell in love with the exposed brick and the fireplace.
“We worked together on the whole thing, being very flexible and letting the style of the venue lead us in our planning,” says Bethany. “Being so open-minded really helped as we planned. For example, the bridesmaids’ dresses were originally planned to be a dusty rose colour but this washed them out, so we tried on different colours until we found one that suited all the girls and agreed on navy.”
From there the theme ended up being very classic and natural, with navy and grey touches, and simple white and green florals.
But there was one part of the planning that Bethany wasn’t feeling so confident about.
“As a plus size bride, I was really nervous about shopping for a wedding dress,” she says. “I’ve never had a great relationship with clothes or my body, and even the idea of being in underwear in a fitting room with a shop assistant was overwhelming.”
After doing lots of research online, she booked an appointment at David’s Bridal in Glasgow. By complete chance, all of her bridesmaids were available to go along with her and her mum.
“I tried to be open-minded about the type of dress I wanted, as I’d read online that you tend to end up with something totally different to what you expected. The dress was the sixth dress I tried on and the minute I looked into the mirror I gasped and said, “This is it!”. The lovely lady at David’s Bridal was amazing and made me feel so comfortable, she really listened to every little detail that I liked or didn’t like with each dress and took them all onboard to help me find the one!”
Bethany had a veil custom-made by Fabricated Bridal to match her dress and teamed it with Vivienne Westwood + Melissa Ultragirl heart ballerina pumps (shoe crush alert!). She and her sister, bridesmaid Megan, wore matching ‘sister’ rings from Pandora.
Daniel had always wanted to get a suit custom-made for the wedding, but one that didn’t break their budget. He used Moss Bros’ Tailor Me service and loved the freedom it gave to customise his outfit.
The couple say they were very lucky in their planning and didn’t have too many road bumps. The bridal alterations studio that Bethany booked her dress into went bust, but luckily that was an easy fix as they hadn’t started work on the dress yet.
“We also learned how important hair and makeup trials are after a couple of big fail appointments,” adds Bethany.
They chose all their suppliers based not only on their amazing work, but their personalities and how well they got along with them as people.
“Every single one was out of this world amazing and I wouldn’t change any of them if we did the whole thing again.”
It was love over cupcakes when they first met up with their photographer. “We already knew we loved Joy Story’s natural style wedding photos from some pre-wedding Instagram stalking, and meeting Sarah in person, we knew that they’d be a great match,” says Bethany.
Originally, they had decided not to have a videographer, but the further into the wedding planning they got, the more Bethany kept watching wedding films online for inspiration. This led them to the incredible work of Craig and Kelly at Eleven Six Films.
Daniel says he will never forget the moment he saw Bethany walking down the aisle towards him, about to become his wife. She adds that she will always remember the overwhelming joy of having all of the most special people in the world to her in one place, so full of love and happiness.
As their wedding was half Scottish and half English, they were worried how a ceilidh would go down, but in hindsight say they shouldn’t have been.
“Everyone was on the dancefloor and the English crowd jumped in and loved every second. The dancefloor was full all night – we kept the party going until 2:30am!”
BETHANY & DANIEL’S WEDDING PLANNING ADVICE
“Go with your gut. If you really want something then get it. Plan your day for yourself, if other people don’t like it that’s on them not you.”
WEDDING TEAM
Venue – 29 Glasgow
Photographer – Joy Story
Filmmaker – Eleven Six Films
Celebrant – Ronit Quayle, Humanist Society Scotland
Hair & Makeup – Robyn Donald & Jade McPike
Florist – Briar Rose Design
Flower wall – Jam Events
Cake – Rosewood Cakes
Bethany’s outfit – Oleg Cassini for David’s Bridal, veil custom-made by Fabricated Bridal and Vivienne Westwood + Melissa Ultragirl shoes from ASOS
Daniel’s outfit – Moss Bros
Bridesmaids’ dresses – David’s Bridal & Aldo shoes
Stationery – Papier and Nancy Sneff
Band – Kilter Ceilidh Band
Transport – Glasgow Taxis
