Owls, house banners, and eerily accurate Harry Potter details at Kayleigh & Dougie’s Scottish Harry Potter wedding

The Offbeat Bride: Kayleigh, Anatomy Graduate and stay-at-home mum

Her offbeat partner: Dougie, Hard Rock Cafe Bartender

Date and location of wedding: Lochside House Hotel, New Cumnock, Ayrshire, Scotland — August 28, 2014

Our offbeat wedding at a glance:

Dougie and I are geeks and wanted our wedding to be full of personal touches to give our friends and families a giggle and an insight into our mad heads… or mine, mainly. I am OBSESSED with Harry Potter. I have Potter tattoos, an embarrassing amount of memorabilia, can beat anyone in a quiz, and Dougie proposed to me in the film studios in London in Ollivander's wand shop with a ring on my favourite character's wand. It made perfect sense to me to have a Harry Potter wedding.

We had themed tables with all sorts of handmade props, banners, a sorting hat table plan where everyone got their own wand, an Azkaban “Wanted” sign photo booth, themed badges depending on what house you were sorted into, a quill to sign our guestbook, a Honeyduke's sweet shop sweetie buffet, and we had drinks reception entertainment in the form of a magician and lots of real live owls. We also had a phoenix cake that I decorated myself two days before the wedding.

Tell us about the ceremony:

We had a humanist ceremony, so we got to write the whole ceremony ourselves. We included lots of Scottish traditions such as a handfasting ritual with a ribbon made from both our family clan tartans and drinking whisky from a quaich.

A string quartet provided the ceremony music: I walked down the aisle to “Always” by Blink 182, and as we were signing the documents, we had various quartet versions of our favourite rock songs. We also got a rendition of “Hedwig's Theme.” One of our groomsmen sang and played guitar (“Grow Old With You” from The Wedding Singer) during the ceremony. The room was decorated by my mum — she handmade lots of pom-poms and bunting in bright colours.

Tell us about your reception:

For the evening reception, we had a live band who were fantastic — they played our favourite rock songs (our first dance was to Papa Roach!) We served rolls with tattie scones, square sausage, and chips (good Scottish grub!). Dougie is a massive Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan, so it was great when his work mates surprised him at night by bringing out a massive load of ninja masks for everyone to wear. It was hilarious as everyone danced and rocked out in turtle masks!

What was your most important lesson learned?

My biggest challenge was deciding to make everything for the Harry Potter tables myself. I love the books so much, and I have ideas in my head of what I think certain things look like, so I had to DIY. I spent months trawling through discount shops and on eBay searching for weird and wacky candelabras, the perfect wands, etc. I also spent months handmaking Maurauder's Map invites, place cards, and menus. Another challenge was convincing Dougie that the Harry Potter theme was a good idea, but he is a total sweetheart and let me put my heart and soul into the theme. I know I've got a keeper in him.

My advice is to be yourself, do what makes you happy, not what people expect you to do, necessarily. Everyone will have an opinion about your wedding, so keep your plans between you and your partner if you need to.

Vendors

• Photography: Amy Paterson and Neil Armstrong Photography
• Music: Korda String quartet and Velvet Five
• Videographer: White Balloon Films
• Entertainment: The Magic Renz (magician) and Owl Magic
• Dress: Benjamin Roberts from Pre-Loved
• Shoes: Irregular Choice
• Headdress: Corrine Smith Design
• Hair: Hair Creations by Anna Wade
• Flowers: All bouquets made by my talented mum