A big, beautiful Scottish barn wedding

We’re travelling back to pre-Covid times today for a beautiful, big Scottish barn wedding. Brenda and Iain fell in love in Singapore and dated long distance for 18 months before tying the knot at the Barn At Barra Castle in the summer of 2019. Their wonderful love story and international celebration, complete with ceilidh and lots of hugs (remember those?), is giving us all the feels!

How did you meet?

We met while we were both working in Singapore and started dating. Not long after that I was moved back to the UK and we did long distance for a year and a half, meeting up every three months somewhere in the middle.

Brenda finally came to the UK on a Fiancee Visa and we got married. She only saw the venue properly a week before the big day and did her share of the planning from Taiwan. All of the in person meetings with the caterers and florist had to happen very close to the big day, so we were very grateful that they all helped us.

What inspired your wedding plans?

Pintrest, Instagram, websites, weddings we had been to, magazines… It was really nice to see how other people had done things and make small tweaks.

It was important for us that our friends and family get to see how beautiful Aberdeenshire can be. The Barn At Barra Castle is amazing! We found it by accident on the way home from another venue. The way they converted the barn means it needs very little decoration to make it look beautiful.

Sarah, the owner, is brilliant too, she and her team were very helpful leading up to the wedding and on the day.

Our florist, Floral Request was fantastic – everything was very natural and they were very helpful at making the decorations to our style and, more importantly, budget. They were brilliant on the day and just made everything look perfect. So many people wanted the flowers to take home, we weren’t left with that many which was great as it didn’t feel like a waste.

We love your outfits! Tell us more…

Brenda: This was handmade by a small boutique in Taiwan. It was just what I was looking for and it fit almost perfectly off the peg. Being quite small, I found it hard to find a dress in the UK and I wasn’t going to be here long enough before the wedding to find one. So I brought it with me on the plane – luckily the airline were very kind and let me as it was my wedding dress.

Iain: I wore a kilt set from Gibbs of Inverurie. They were fantastic and made the whole thing very easy. All of my groomsmen were coming in from all around the world and no one had any issues with the fit of their kilts.

Your photos are beautiful!

Hayley and her husband, Craig are fantastic at making the process feel comfortable and the photos are amazing – so beautiful and natural.

They were very helpful, fast at getting back to our questions, and very patient… even when we forgot to go to our pre-shoot (sorry Hayley!).

Were there any challenges?

The weather very nearly didn’t play ball. From day one we wanted our Humanist ceremony to be outside. On the morning everyone was saying we should change the plan, but we stuck to our guns and got away with it. The sun even came out for the photos.

The ceremony was just lovely, and it meant a lot to both of us.

Did you manage to stick to your budget?

It depends whose budget you look at… I (Iain) basically added a buffer and we went over that slightly, but we were quite careful and tracked everything from day one.

What was your first dance song?

Ed Sheeren’s ‘Perfect’… maybe a bit cheesy but we love it!

Any advice?

Make sure you have nothing to organise on the day – delegate everything you can. It will be over in a flash, enjoy it.

We love it when a long distance love story has such a beautiful ending! If you’re waiting for your chance to be together again, or to tie the knot in big, Scottish style, then hang in there. Once we’re on the other side of this, these celebrations will be all the sweeter. x