OUTDOOR WINTER WEDDING AT GLASGOW HIDDEN GARDENS

Changing Covid regulations wasn’t the only challenge Beth and Jamie faced when planning their big day. There was also the small matter of two left shoes…

From the glorious red dress to the takeaway & champagne while in PJs dinner, their Glasgow Hidden Gardens winter wedding shows that great things come from getting creative in the face of adversity. Read on and prepare to be inspired!

How did you two meet?

Embarrassingly, over Twitter when we were 17. We went to a lot of similar gigs and had a mutual friend (also from online!), so after months of texting and Skyping, we met and went to the cinema.

What inspired your wedding plans?

We had a big wedding planned, but due to Covid it was starting to look unlikely. My mum made a joke about eloping, which has always appealed to me anyway, so we decided to plan a tiny ceremony so we could be married because we just didn’t want to wait!

My ethos during planning was that I refused to let anything be stressful. The whole idea was to remove the worry and stress of the pandemic possibly affecting our wedding so we kept our plans low-key. We didn’t spend money on anything we felt was unnecessary, we wanted the day to be about us being married, not having a big wedding.

Tell us about your venue…

Our venue is just around the corner from where we live. Due to Covid restrictions, we wanted somewhere outdoors and looked into some of the many wonderful parks in Glasgow, however, it was hard to get information about the process online for getting permission to get married in the park.

I was looking up venues with gardens when the Hidden Gardens popped up on Google. It was ideal – they are very local, they are a charity organisation and the gardens themselves are lovely. I felt it perfectly fit the vibe of what we wanted to do, it supported a charitable cause and it was very budget-friendly.

The venue from the get-go were so friendly, enthusiastic, and positive, it made me feel really comfortable and on the day the gardeners who were working were so accommodating.

Given we only had four external suppliers (cake, venue, humanist and photographer) I have to shout out all of them! I felt that everyone was genuinely excited about our wedding and that they wanted to make it special for us. Lauren and Ronit in particular both made us feel comfortable and relaxed, which only made our ceremony better and our pictures amazing.

We love your outfits! Tell us more…

I went with a red, tea-length off the shoulder dress, in a 50s style with the full skirt. I knew for the wee wedding, and with it being outdoors, my original wedding dress wouldn’t work as it was full length and would get damaged.

For some reason, red jumped out at me. I felt like I had more freedom with a small wedding and didn’t feel tied to tradition at all. My sister initially suggested something 50s style for me, as I feel comfortable in that kind of style and it suits my figure perfectly. It was the only dress I ordered and it fit spot on, it was meant to be.

I had a wedding shoe disaster where the company I ordered from sent me two different shoes, both for the left foot. After nearly a fortnight of me emailing and begging, I finally got the original pair I wanted – sparkly, low chunky heels, so I didn’t need to worry about mud, and my heels wouldn’t sink in the grass!

Your photos are giving us goosebumps!

Lauren actually used to work with my mum, who suggested her.

We bounced a few different photographers around – there’s so much talent and choice in Glasgow – but ultimately I loved Lauren’s style, the high contrast without losing colour and detail.

I prefer non-traditional photography and spent so much time going through her Instagram. I love the energy and emotion you can feel through her images, I find them so intimate.

Tell us more about the challenges…

Four days before our wedding, Scotland moved into Level 4. This meant our reception was cancelled and that we wouldn’t be able to spend time with our families after the ceremony.

Luckily, we were allowed all the guests we had invited (all 15!) and the ceremony was able to go ahead as planned. It wasn’t ideal, but we were very much going on the basis of the ceremony being the important part.

We ordered a really fancy takeaway instead, finished our wedding cake and drank champagne in our pyjamas – it was honestly better.

Did you manage to stick to your budget?

Our budget was pretty much zero. We still had our original wedding all booked at this point, so it was a case of doing something meaningful and buying what was necessary, without getting caught up on small things.

I designed our invites online and sent them via Facebook and WhatsApp – it was just our close family after all. Our venue had excellent hire rates which I was more than happy to pay, and we bought one cake each and made it something we really wanted to eat, rather than a huge cake to suit the masses.

Photography was the most expensive element, but I think having the pictures captured, especially the ones of our friends and family and my lovely nephews, is absolutely invaluable.

Any advice?


I think it’s important to think about why you’re getting married. For me, a big wedding didn’t matter. Even though we were only able to have 15 guests, I still felt like I didn’t have enough time to talk to everyone, having the small ceremony really made me feel as if all our guests were truly involved in our day and showed them how important they are to us.

Our humanist celebrant, Ronit (Humanist Society Scotland) often reminded me there is no right or wrong way to get married, so just do what we wanted to do. This really helped us make decisions that were for us and us alone, and make our day feel like us. Relationships are so personal and I think we did a really good job of making our day *feel* like us, and our loved ones felt similar.

Honeymoon or minimoon?

Nothing yet! We are hoping to go away for a few nights sometime this year, pandemic allowing!

What’s the one moment you’ll always remember?

It rained on the day! When I woke up in the morning it was lovely and clear, then by afternoon, the rain was on. We held off and held off, and with Lauren’s excellent weather app we managed to time the ceremony in a lovely dry period.

As it was November, there was that lovely, low winter sun and as we were announced as husband and wife, it broke through the clouds and lit up the clearing – we couldn’t have planned it better.

We LOVE the way Beth & Jamie rocked their wedding reception for two in style (and in their PJs)! And pretty sure we’ll all be swooning over this dress for some time. x