NOTHING FANCY, JUST LOVE: A LOCH VENACHAR ELOPEMENT
Shetland sweethearts Tina + Grant chose a secret Loch Venachar elopement that was everything they wanted and more
“I am so proud that we got married exactly how we wanted to and not how it ‘should’ be done.”
~ Tina + Grant
We Fell In Love With…
An outdoor ceremony, a sequin gown, relaxed family feels, and the sheer simplicity of focusing on what’s important!
A secret Loch Venachar elopement was the perfect choice for Tina & Grant. We love how they created their own day exactly how they wanted it – “nothing fancy, just love.” We couldn’t have put it better ourselves!
Read on to see some beautiful inspiration and hang around to the end to get some extra important advice from this lovely couple.
TELL US ABOUT YOU TWO + YOUR WEDDING JOURNEY
My friend had recently met somebody on Tinder and she took it upon herself to set me up a Tinder profile, whilst sitting in the pub, and started swiping. Grant’s profile popped up and she immediately said “Why did I not think about this before?!” She knew him from school and also from being in the retained fire service. Long story short, I/she swiped right and we started speaking straight away.
When COVID and lockdown hit in March 2020, we bit the bullet and I moved in with Grant and his son until things ‘calmed down’ and I never left! When our son Jakob was born, we started to speak about celebrating our peerie (Shetland dialect for “small”) family and making it ‘official.’ For various reasons neither of us wanted a big wedding or any fuss made. In Shetland, weddings are usually at least a two night affair but for us, this was about celebrating us and the boys. The more we spoke about it the more we realised that a secret elopement was for us. We didn’t tell anybody, not even our families, except for our close friends who we asked to be our witnesses. Our plan was to all go on holiday together (our friends, their three bairns, us, our two boys and the dog!) and to finish it off by getting married!
The only supplier which we knew immediately was our photographer. Susan had taken several sets of family photos for us and we asked if she would be willing to travel down to the mainland with us to take our wedding photos. Thankfully, she agreed and we pinned down a date that worked for all of us (which was no easy task). Organising a wedding, in secret, away from home felt incredibly overwhelming so we then reached out to Cat Duthie at Fin Flükra for help! I found her on Instagram and when we found out she was a fellow Shetlander we knew she would ‘get it.’ She helped us find everything else that we needed, from location to catering and we couldn’t have done it without her. Once all the suppliers were booked it was just a case of waiting (and keeping quiet) until nearer the time to actually sort out the specific details. Most of the suppliers had actually worked together before which made things so easy as they knew exactly what the drill was!
TELL US ABOUT YOUR OUTFITS
I knew I wanted a sequin type dress but could not find anything that I liked for ages. The only one that came close could only be shipped from America. I wasn’t confident about ordering in case it wasn’t right or didn’t fit and not being able to get it easily replaced. I was then browsing on ASOS and my dress popped up and it was PERFECT… but not available in my size. My friend (the only one that knew) and I were constantly refreshing ASOS every day and I even emailed the label directly to see if they could help! Thankfully, on a random night, one dress became available in my size. I jumped on it, ordered it and when it arrived it was exactly what I was looking for. It needed a few adjustments and I got that done by a local seamstress a few weeks before the wedding.
Grant knew he wanted him and the boys to wear kilts – as he hates wearing suits! He decided to rent kilts from McCalls. As we are based in Shetland, we had to send measurements by email and hope we’d done them correctly! When we arrived on the mainland a week before the wedding, we took a trip to the shop to try the kilts on and make sure that we had everything that we needed. We then picked up the kilts the day before the wedding and returned them on the way back up north!
TELL US ABOUT YOUR CEREMONY
Our motto for our wedding quickly became “Nothing fancy, just love” and we wanted our ceremony to reflect that. We worked hard on our ‘homework’ from ace humanist Ronit and she managed to put our entire story into words for us.
The ceremony felt so special, personalised and totally about us. We also had some surprise words and ‘advice’ from my step-son (aged 9), our witnesses and some other close friends who had found out about the wedding when we met up with them on our holiday! This was one of my favourite parts of the ceremony and made us laugh so much on the day. We made personalised vows to each other – complete with Friends quotes from Grant and some special vows to my step-son from me. Our friend read a Shetland dialect poem and we also incorporated Hand Fasting, using four strands to represent our family.
We got married outside at our beautiful venue, where we were also staying on holiday. The week leading up to the wedding, the weather had been incredibly mixed, including thunder storms! Thankfully, the universe smiled on us on the wedding day and it was beautiful and sunny, and surprisingly not a midgie in sight. We got married by the side of Loch Venachar with our friends and bairns beside us, and the dog, who enjoyed destroying a frisbee throughout!
TELL US ABOUT THE RECEPTION
Having such a small wedding, we didn’t have a reception per se. After the ceremony we spent all afternoon enjoying the sun and each other’s company! The bairns and dog had fun playing in the garden and the loch and the grown-ups relaxed with some drinks.
When the younger bairns went down for a nap, we spent some alone time getting photos with Susan before we all enjoyed an amazing meal provided by Jean at Scottish Wild Picnics.
We didn’t have a cake, but Jean kindly made us a Pavlova which everybody loved. When we eventually got the bairns in bed we had some drinks in the hot tub trying to soak up as much of the day as possible!
ANY LESSONS LEARNED OR ADVICE YOU’D LIKE TO SHARE?
Two main bits of advice for other couples. One – “You Do You”. We were both really nervous about reactions to our elopement when we came home, but we knew in our heart of hearts that eloping in secret was what we wanted and worked best for us and our family.
I am so proud that we got married exactly how we wanted to and not how it ‘should’ be done. And two – if you have small children in attendance – SNACKS!
