A spring wedding in one of Scotland’s hidden tropical gems

Anyone in need of a hit of colour? Rachel and Tom’s pink country house wedding is making us smile today. From the botanical gardens (looking lush in spring 2019!) to the chic styling, there’s so much to love. And if you’re after some DIY inspiration for your own big day, you’ll find that here too.

What inspired your wedding plans?

We both have big families so it was always going to be a big wedding! We called in a lot of favours from family and friends so it was really a homemade affair.

To name a few – Tom’s aunty was our celebrant and our friend Malcolm sang at the church, the flowers were all by a family friend, Sam, Tom’s mum designed all our stationery with beautiful little sketches of the church and Logan House, both our mums made a lot of litres of sloe gin for the favours and various other little details from the whisky bar to after-dinner chocolates were put together by talented friends.

We also just really wanted it to be a laidback day and let the beautiful surroundings of the gardens speak for themselves.

Tell us about your venue…

We are both from the South West of Scotland and have happy childhood memories of summer days spent in Portpatrick (near where Tom is from). It was an easy choice of location for us both but being that little bit rural and both having such big families, it was harder than expected to find the right venue for us.

Ultimately we happened to find both our ceremony and reception venues through word of mouth. Ardwell Kirk is a little village church which is now looked after by the local community. As it is non-denominational, it allowed us to have the humanist ceremony we wanted. Our celebrant was Barbara Chalmers (who is not only brilliant but is Tom’s Aunty which made it all the more special).

Logan House is a very lovely (and pink) country house which sits next to the botanical gardens in Port Logan. We’d heard that occasionally there had been some marquee weddings on the grounds in the past, so reached out to the owners and they very kindly agreed to let us have our reception there.

We live in London now but it was really important for us to get married at home in Scotland. We’ve both spent time living abroad and had guests from France, Germany, Poland, Norway, Spain, Denmark, Cyprus and Ireland. We wanted our friends from overseas to see where we grew up at its best and enjoy a proper ceilidh!

We love your flowers & styling!

We are lucky enough to have a very talented family friend, Sam, who did all the flower arrangements. We opted for very loose, wild arrangements with pastel colours and lots of greenery. The flowers brought a pop of colour to the church and marquee.

We used a mismatch of vases that we begged, stole and borrowed from friends and families, including the odd pint glass here and there. Local Lily Of The Valley was in bloom at the time of our wedding so I had a touch of that through my bouquet and in my hair.

Tom’s mum (who is super creative) drew us little sketches of the church and Logan House, which we used for our wedding invites and also incorporated into our table and place settings.

We love your outfits!

I wore a blush and ivory Nina dress by Ellis Gillis. It wasn’t at all what I thought I’d go for and was in fact picked out by my mum.

I loved the blush of the bodice and embroidered flowers. I felt comfortable in it from the moment I put it on. I wore my grandmother’s Victorian crystal drop earrings and some Lily Of The Valley through my hair. I also wore a rose double-breasted blazer (from Reiss) over the top when it got a bit chilly. I went for some simple sandals from Dune.

Tom wore his own kilt (which is his family tartan – Cameron of Erracht Ancient) with a green tweed jacket.

For the bridesmaids, we bought them all online, mostly from ASOS. We went for a mismatched look. I first picked out a colour palette I had in mind and a bunch of different dresses I liked. From there, the bridesmaids picked their own. It was a bit of trial and error to get a mix of different styles and colours but I think it just about worked!
Similarly, for the ushers, we as asked them to wear their own or choose one to hire.

Your photos are incredible!

We absolutely loved Lindsey at Mack Photo. She completely put us at ease and was really unobtrusive, so much so that it felt almost like she was an extra wedding guest.

Lindsey beautifully captured so many personal moments and her photographs really tell the story of the day. After dinner (when the rain had eased a little), we went back out into the gardens with Lindsey to get the last of the evening light. It made for some beautiful photographs and also gave Tom and me some time together to briefly pause and reflect on the day so far.

What was your first dance song?

Leon Bridges, Coming Home. There is no real story behind the song choice. We just both love this song and it reminds us of summer days in London!

A family friend, Ian played the organ at the church. He was so accommodating and let us choose whatever music we wanted. I walked down the aisle to Gabriel’s Oboe by Ennio Morricone, which sounded beautiful on an organ. We also had a local piper at the church.

Were there any challenges along the way?

Loads of things! We had the only rainy day in a week full of sunshine (but some last-minute umbrella hires worked out well). We forgot about high chairs for our littlest attendees and my sister had to run down to the local café on the morning of the wedding to borrow theirs.

It didn’t look like the confetti was going to arrive on time so we bought lots of cheap flowers from the supermarket and used the petals from them instead (which in the end made for some really beautiful pictures!).

Did you manage to stick to your budget?

More or less. We were clueless about how much things cost at the start of the process. But, once we had a more detailed budget up and running, we mostly kept to it.

Any advice?


Delegate! Our friends and family were delighted to help (or at least they said so).

Honeymoon or minimoon?

Minimoon! We went straight to Islay and Mull for a week after the wedding. Having been so busy on the run up, it was the perfect trip to pause and recharge. The weather was surprisingly good and we had lots of sunshine and blue skies.

We spent our time walking on (empty) beaches, drinking whisky and eating too much. We had an unforgettable trip to Fingal’s Cave and to see the puffins on the Treshnish Isles. We absolutely loved spending our minimoon in Scotland.

What’s the one truly unforgettable thing about your wedding day?

There is no one moment we could single out but the speeches were fantastic. The maid of honour and two best men delivered a joint speech which was so funny but also incredibly touching. Tom and I also did a joint speech and we are so glad we did.

It’s rare that you have all of your friends and family in the same room as each other and poised to listen to you. Our wedding was really the culmination of such a lot of work from others in the room on the day and it was lovely to properly say thank you.

Oh my heart – all those hugs and laughs and beautiful moments captured along the way! Also, making a note of Rachel and Tom’s minimoon to add to our travel wishlist. It sounds wonderful! x