A RELAXED PARKHILL ESTATE WEDDING WITH DIY DETAILS & A FESTIVAL FEEL
FEATURING
Shelley + Jack brought their Irish and Scottish families together for a DIY festival themed celebration at their Parkhill Estate wedding
“DIYing things will always take longer than you think … but we honestly wouldn’t change a thing as we had a great day and it was worth all the stress!”
~ Shelley + Jack
We Fell In Love With…
Tipis festooned with twinkly lights, street food trucks, disco balls, and a super sentimental grey & black wedding dress.
Shelley + Jack took the DIY route and really made their big day their own. We love their relaxed ceremony, conducted by their friends, which set the scene for a fun-fuelled reception and after-party. Hayley Fraser’s images capture this Parkhill Estate wedding beautifully and our very own Cat at Fin Flükra worked her magic to help give this gorgeous pair their perfect day!
Read on for some cool inspo and stick around to the end to get some valuable advice from Shelley and Jack.
TELL US ABOUT YOU TWO + YOUR WEDDING JOURNEY
Jack and I met in Glasgow, on a Subcrawl (Subway pub crawl) for our mutual friends birthday. One minute, I was visiting Scotland and next a one-night stand had turned into a marriage!
We were long-distance for nearly a year before Jack moved over to Ireland just before Covid. Spending all that time together in lockdown made us realise we wanted to get married surrounded by all our family and friends.
Jack proposed at a festival, which became the theme for our wedding! As we lived in Ireland, we wanted to have the wedding in Scotland. Our dating anniversary is 6th April, so we chose that date for our legal ceremony with just us and our witnesses. One year later we had our big celebration!
We planned most of the wedding whilst we were travelling around New Zealand. We hired our planner, Cat of Fin Flükra, to take over a few months beforehand and to coordinate on the day. Thank goodness for Cat, as we encountered several issues just a few weeks beforehand – the vendors hadn’t realised we had no power or kitchen facilities and we had to rent it all last minute!
TELL US ABOUT YOUR OUTFITS
Jack wore a kilt that was made specially for the wedding – he loved having a special new kilt to wear for our big day and could get it made to match Shelly’s dress.
We are very eco conscious and the idea of buying a new dress only for it to rot in the attic afterwards didn’t sit right with us. Shelley’s mother, sister in law and her mother (like another mum to Shelley) still had their dresses which they gifted to Shelley who dyed them in the back garden. Grey is her favourite colour. A family friend took the dresses apart and put them back together again to create a unique, custom dress. It was made of Shelley’s mother’s lace skirt and the bodice of her other mum’s dress. Shelley’s veil was made from lace from her sister-in-law’s dress – she’s Italian, so it was dramatic AF!
Jack’s best friend wore a matching kilt, and Shelley’s best friend and sister-in-law wore green dresses but in different styles. We asked the girls to pick what they wanted to wear and to choose something they would wear again – they have both since worn the dresses to other weddings!
We also had our dog with us for the party and used the remnants from Shelley’s wedding dress to make her a matching dress – which she wore for all of 15 minutes! Jack’s little sister was our flower girl and also wore a green dress which she chose. Shelley’s brother was our MC and wore a green suit to match the rest of the bridal party. We loved how everything looked together.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR CEREMONY
We had a really short ceremony, we didn’t need any legal aspects as we’d held our legal ceremony the year before.
All our guests sat at their tables and we got married on the dance floor. We didn’t have an aisle but our flower girl walked in first, followed by both of Shelley’s parents who walked her to Jack. Shelley’s little brother was on bubble gun duty!
Our ceremony was performed by our witnesses. Shelley’s best friend wrote the entire thing. Shelley’s sister-in-law, who is an author, wrote and read a beautiful poem. Our vows were traditional Irish vows. We kept it very short and sweet.
TELL US ABOUT THE RECEPTION
Our reception was festival themed. We had a big festival tent in the beautiful grounds of Parkhill Estate. Our wedding table names were stops from the subcrawl where we met.
A food truck served our meals – a buffet and a late night snack of kebabs which our guests loved. Shelley is vegetarian so the buffet was really varied. The Rolling Stove were amazing and had no problem accommodating everything. Several of our vegan (and non vegan) guests said it was the best food they’d had at a wedding.
We had a horse box bar which looked so cute with the tipis. The Mobile Measures staff were amazing – it’s not easy to keep up with a half Scottish/ half Irish wedding but they managed it!
Music was very important, and we wanted everyone up dancing as much as possible. We hired the Anti Wedding DJs, created playlists for them and planned our cèilidh. So much of our night was spent on the dance floor. A highlight was getting every guest up for the cèilidh!
We made a lot of the decor for the dance floor. Our Maid of Honour made hanging disco balls – we all have one in our houses now. We didn’t have a cake but did a tequila shot toast during Shelley’s speech.
ANY LESSONS OR ADVICE YOU’D LIKE TO SHARE?
It’s tough to organise every supplier for your wedding and DIYing things will always take longer than you think. It’s probably a lot easier to book a venue which provides most of these for you but we honestly wouldn’t change a thing. We had a great day and it was worth all the stress!
