Melissa & Sean’s Edinburgh Castle Wedding

The Offbeat Bride: Melissa – Executive Director, but you may remember her from being profiled previously on OffbeatBride.com in “Offbeat Military Weddings.”

Her Offbeat Partner: Sean – Soldier

Location & Date of wedding: Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh Scotland — Sept 11, 2007

What made our wedding offbeat:

Blue medieval wedding dress custom made, all the guys in uniforms, the hubby in his military dress uniform (from a Canadian Highland regiment), a Mountie in full red serge in Scotland, totally tripped out the tourists, and mismatched bridesmaids.

Lots of Scottish culture, hand-fasting, non-traditional readings, and much, much single malt scotch. And all of this taking place in a medieval castle built on top of an inactive volcano.

Full military honour guard with WWII rifles at our unit armoury for our reception back home, cut the cake with a sword, and toasted with a full bottle of Glenlivet 15 year old, after just having gotten back from the distillery in Speyside.

Our biggest challenge: Booking everything in Scotland from Canada. All done by e-mail, which worked out amazingly well, except for when the hairdresser who didn’t bother to show up, so we walked to a salon who was able to take us in at the last minute.

My favorite moment: Standing on the battlements of the castle in an amazing dress with my stunning new husband, sitting on a canon and looking down the mountain over the entirety of the city of Edinburgh.

My advice for other offbeat brides: Whatever you do, make sure it MEANS something to you. Bring in your own culture, traditions, hobbies, loves, and make it really YOURS.

Enough talk — click the picture below to see the wedding porn and to find out what a skean dubh is: