A FREE COMPANY WEDDING BURSTING WITH COLOUR
FEATURING
Self-confessed fun-lovers Laura & Ali’s Free Company wedding was bright, bold and full of joy
“It’s really easy to get caught up in trends, social media, and what other people are doing, but we found as soon as we blocked all of that out and just planned exactly what we wanted, it instantly felt like a weight had lifted.”
~ Laura + Ali
We Fell In Love With…
Summer fiesta vibes, incredible DIY decor, and a colourful cake of dreams!
Laura and Ali chose a vibrant, summery Free Company wedding to represent their fun-loving and bright personalities. This was a match made in heaven for their wedding photographer, our very own – Joy Story, who had a ball capturing the sheer joy of the day.
Keep reading to find out all about it and hang around to the end to hear their expert advice for those currently planning a wedding!
TELL US ABOUT YOU TWO + YOUR WEDDING JOURNEY
Ali and I met at Summer camp when we were 14. Over the following months we had a pretty standard young teen relationship – held hands in town, watched films at each other’s houses and generally acted like awkward teenagers. We split up but in the intervening 10+ years we remained close. We’d often have drunken conversations about being in love and getting married but it was never more than a pipe dream at that point as neither of us had the courage to tell the other how we really felt!
In 2017, a good friend of Ali’s sadly passed away, which made us both evaluate our feelings for each other and we have been together ever since.
Ali proposed in November 2022 with a gorgeous vintage yellow heart-shaped diamond set in yellow gold. We were on holiday in Knoydart, and it was very special and low key.
We knew we wanted a summer wedding so gave ourselves 18 months to plan and get everything organised, and set the date for 22 June 2024. We knew we wanted Laura Gillespie to marry us as she is a close family friend. We had been to The Free Company for their supper clubs a few times and knew their ethos, relaxed atmosphere, and most importantly incredible food aligned exactly to what we wanted from our wedding, so it was an easy choice of venue!
We are both summer babies and knew we wanted a vibrant, happy, summery colour scheme. Laura designed and made all the decor, with the colour scheme heavily leaning on yellows, oranges, pinks and reds. We wanted Emily at Fruit Salad flowers to do the flowers, as she is incredible at bright, colourful and individual floristry!
TELL US ABOUT YOUR OUTFITS
Laura searched high and low for the right dress before decided on a really simple floor length satin dress from Ghost. She felt amazing in it, and it meant there was a lot more of a budget to spend on other things!
Ali wore his family tartan kilt, and his groomsmen all wore their own tartans, but they hired matching kilt jackets to bring everything together. It worked really well!
Laura’s bridesmaids all chose their own dresses. It was really important that they all felt amazing and comfortable. They took the colour scheme brief and just ran with it! It ended up working perfectly, with one in hot pink, one in yellow, one in orange and one in coral. The photos looked insane!
TELL US ABOUT YOUR CEREMONY
We had a humanist ceremony, as neither of us have any religious affiliation and we really feel personally aligned to the values of humanism. Laura Gillespie is a close family friend, so it was really very special to have her lead us in our marriage ceremony.
Our friend Sophie did a reading from Dolly Alderton’s book Everything I Know About Love. Our friend Martha sang James Taylor’s ‘How Sweet It Is’ while we signed the register. We also incorporated a couple of traditional Scottish elements, like ‘tying the knot’ with our family tartans, and drinking whisky from a quaich (which had a little spaniel’s head engraved in it to represent our wee dog Rolo). Our wedding rings were Laura’s mother’s grandparents’ wedding rings, which was really special.
TELL US ABOUT THE RECEPTION
After the ceremony, we had a drinks reception with gorgeous canapés of homemade focaccia and sausage rolls with kimchi mayonnaise. We had relaxed outdoor speeches, while everyone carried on eating and drinking. We did a joint speech, followed by Laura’s Dad, Ali’s mum, and our best man Scobie, who Laura met at uni and has since become Ali’s best pal.
For dinner we had charred courgette with herb ricotta, followed by dexter beef with smoked potatoes, coffee roast carrots and salsa verde. For dessert we had poached rhubarb with frangipane cake. The food at the Free Company is out of this world, we would definitely recommend if you have a trip to Edinburgh planned! The cake was sensational – our friend Rosanna owns 101 Bakery. She made us a 3 tiered cake – bottom layer was tiramisu cake, middle was chocolate and hazelnut and the top layer was lemon and pistachio.
We had a ceilidh, led by Trail West. It was so much fun. We then had a playlist of all our favourite dance bangers from ABBA to Arctic Monkeys, and we asked our guests to request a song when they sent their RSVP. The dancefloor was full all night!
The night finished in the traditional Scottish way, everyone gathered to sing Loch Lomond and lifted the two of us up on their shoulders.
ANY LESSONS LEARNED OR ADVICE YOU’D LIKE TO SHARE?
Our biggest challenge was to make sure the day was exactly how we wanted it. It’s really easy to get caught up in trends, social media, Pinterest, and what other people are doing, but we found as soon as we blocked all of that out it instantly felt like a weight had been lifted and we felt so much more relaxed. It actually made the planning fun instead of stressful!
The only thing we argued about was the guestlist. We are both very sociable people, with big families. Ali makes best friends with absolutely every person he meets which is such a wonderful quality but makes it really difficult to narrow down who to invite to your wedding! We had to draw a line to make sure that everyone who was there was absolutely buzzing to be there. No one felt obligated to attend.
