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The Offbeat Bride: Connie, Charity Worker
Her Offbeat Partner: Jamie, Admin Worker
Location & date of wedding: Isle of Seil, Argyll, Scotland, UK — 27th June 2009 (and OBT member “Connikins“)
What made our wedding offbeat: Connie's from a wee island in the Inner Hebrides, where her family has a beautiful farm right by the sea. So it was a no brainer where we would have the wedding. There's a monument on a small peninsula, which her Dad and some friends erected in the early '80s, that provided the perfect focal point. It was wonderful to be in such beautiful surroundings — the real stars of the wedding were the views!
As a couple we are simplistic in our needs and wants and were determined that our wedding would be a reflection of us rather than how much money we had, or what anyone else thought our day should be.
Furthermore, while we respect religion as a choice for others, we did not want a religious ceremony and opted for a Humanist service. Scotland is one of only six countries in the world where these are currently legal. We kept the service to the absolute minimum, only immediate family and a party later!
The overall cost of the wedding was about £4,000 ($6,700). Connie's sister made the beautiful cake, our invites were a gift and the venue of course free! Instead of wedding cars we had Connie's Dad's boat — it was a struggle to get into, but paid off in the end!
Our biggest challenge: There were two big challenges for us…
We did absolutely everything ourselves from decorating to compiling the playlists, to hand knitting the favours. This turned out to be more time consuming than we'd thought!
When the bride arrived at the pier to get into her boat it was discovered that someone had miscalculated the tides and there was a 5ft gap between the bottom step and the side of the boat. She ended up having to descend a piece of scaffolding we found to get in! Luckily she boarded safely but spent the trip to the wedding picking bits of seaweed out of her dress!
My favorite moment: Our favourite moment was definitely the boat trip back to the pier, immediately ater the service. It was one of the very few moments we grabbed together to ourselves. Our “crew” had fitted out the cabin with some lovely cushions and put a “just married” sign on the side. We drank champagne while passing boats blew their horns at us! The weather was perfect and everything was so calm that it was like another world!
My advice for other offbeat brides: Make sure you set aside some non-wedding time with your other half in the run up. It can get a bit mad and you need to remember why you're doing it in the first place!
Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?:
- Dresses – Vivien of Holloway
- Beatles Suits – Beatwear
Enough talk — show me the wedding inspo!:
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Love love love! An awesome wedding from the wellies to the owls – Even your "crew" in their uniforms 🙂 Congratulations!
I'm sooo glad this made it onto OBB! I know Connie and Jamie but couldn't make the wedding thanks to my work 🙁 I can honestly say I have never met a couple more perfect for each other. So sad I missed it!
P.s how beautiful is the bride?!?
Is she wearing a petticoat? Very cute!
I like this wedding b/c all the owls remind me of my Grandma. She loves them and has collected all sorts of little owl tchotchkes. 🙂
Absolutely LOVE the wedding wellies! You look so in love, and look like you had so much fun! Well done!!!
Was a FANTASTIC Wedding reception and all the bridal party looked spiffing awsome xx
The most beautiful wedding I ever attended was on the Scottish Isle of Iona. I am heartily in favor of simple Scottish isle weddings, and yours is no exception! It sounds perfect, especially that boat ride together. Congratulations! (And I love your owls!)
(are there any pictures of the knitted favours?)
This is my fave Offbeat Bride wedding. Everything about it is perfect! Congrats!!
I love the owl cake topper. the cutest thing i've seen on offbeatbride so far! Also, bravo for the red & green contrast between the bride's maids dresses and the scenery, absolutly stunning
I love the brides maid outfits! soooooo cute!
Yay for Humanist weddings in Scotland! (we had one too). And I just got a Vivien of Holloway dress, they are so perfect…yours looks amazing. Congratulations!
oh you both look amazing and so in love!! I adored the photos! thank you so much for sharing
Nice looking wedding – also glad to see that they got some good weather! After all, the Inner Hebridies aren't known for their wedding friendly climate 😀
Love love love this!! Where did you find your petticoat?
Connie and Jamie are quite definitely in my top five people of all time – I just had a little sniffle looking through the pics again. Twas the bestestestest wedding EVER!
Hello! Thanks for all the nice comments! All three dresses and the petticoat are from Vivien of Holloway, there's a link to her shop just above the slideshow/porn it's completely awesome!
Alas I have no photos of the favours but the cake and cake toppers were all made entirely by my wonderful sister and bridesmaid Cath – she's so clever!
Yay for Scotland and a humanist wedding! We're going down that route next year as well (on the opposite coast) and I can't wait. Congrats – especially on the weather…how did you swing that?!
I love the 'ring' picture!!! It's funny and touching at the same time. You make a beautiful couple.
Gorgeous gorgeous- and thanks for introducing me to Offbeat bride Connie, as if I don't spend enough time looking at wedding stuff! Its so lovely to see the wedding on here and all the lovely comments, you did look ace in the VOH dress x