You can spend a lot of money in wedding sops buying essential table decorations... or make some yourself! We bought a glue gun, some ribbon and decorative bits and set to work up cycling some old jars. It was great fun and comes highly recommended. Plus much cheaper than buying a load of new vases. Text: James Oakley
Photos: James Oakley
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So many weddings go by and I forget to take a single photo!
Well thankfully that wasn't the case this weekend as I remembered to grab this quick selfie. It had been classic Scottish weather, so only moments before the bride arrived had the chairs gone outside. Then the sun came out - phew! A glorious day and a lovely ceremony, even the midges came out for the occasion. My resolution is to try and get more wedding selfies from now on! Blog entry and photography by James Oakley. It seems it's quite common these days for photographers to get a few extra shots of the happy couple during the wedding planning phase.
This is a great idea, my wife and I would have loved to do this before our wedding last year. Click on the link below to see Beth and Jim in the rain! http://www.siobhandiamond.co.uk/siobhandiamond-photographer/2015/7/21/sun-rain-laughter-wedding-rings-beth-jim Blog entry by James Oakley with Photography from Siobhan Diamond Something I would really like to add to the website is a resource with details of lots of the fantastic wedding venues around Glasgow and the West of Scotland...
Problem is - there are loads of great places to get married, so where do I start? And how long will it take? And how can I keep it up to date? I know when my wife and I were looking for venues it was really hard to find interesting places to get married. So watch this space, as a list will be appearing here at some point, but unfortunately not anytime 'soon'! After Stephen and Paul’s wedding I was in the queue for their hog roast (I hadn’t queue barged - they had asked me to join in!) and I met Beth and Jim.
Over drinks in the courtyard at Comrie Croft, Beth told me how they were after a ceremony as personal, fun and (in)formal as Stephen and Paul’s. There’s obviously no better feedback to receive as a celebrant than when someone wants to book you straight away. Hopefully I will be free to marry them on their big day! Blog entry by James Oakley image from library. This year I am looking forward to 8 weddings. One of these is my own!
One particularly busy period will see me go to three weddings in the space of three weeks - and this is shortly after my own wedding. I have my fingers crossed for good weather for everyone's celebrations in this summer of love! But I would also say that come rain, wind or shine a wedding is still a fantastic occasion - so try to look forward to the occasion and don't worry too much about the weather. There is always love, and umbrellas too! It’s difficult to know what to expect when you meet a couple to discuss their wedding for the first time. But my first meeting with Stephen and Paul went brilliantly.
By the end of the meeting I had a really great idea of exactly the sort of ceremony they were after, the key people in their lives who could (and couldn’t) make it and their story. By the end of the week I had a first draft sent to them for them to check, and what do you know - they loved it! If the wedding goes as smoothly as this first meeting did, then I know we’ll all be very happy. It wasn't until the ceremony started that I realised my grandfather had requested for his funeral to be a humanist ceremony.
I had never spoken with my grandfather about religion or his beliefs in anyway. He was a fascinating character. A prolific traveller and storyteller. He always had a story to hand of foreign lands, wars, romances and gardening. As a result I never delved into his politics or religion. And here I was at his Humanist funeral, having spent so much time with him, talking about so much - and yet net never asking any of these big questions. But then maybe I guess we didn't need to. Now I can see, in his love and compassion for others, his joy from his garden and his hopes that everyone in the world would one day just stop fighting and get on with living - that it was absolutely in keeping with his beliefs and moral code that his funeral should be a Humanist funeral. I know now, that I too will be planning a humanist ceremony for my own passing as well. Though do I hope this will be a long way off! My friends and I were really excited to be guests at a mutual friend’s wedding. We had all been at university together and they really wanted us all to be guests on their special day and not have to do anything to help. Very kind of them to want to look after us like this.
Unfortunately they left it late to book their celebrant and so they were lumbered with, let’s call him ‘Barry’ (names have been changed!). Barry was visibly drunk. He slurred words. He got the bride’s name wrong. He looked sweaty and scruffy. He made a number of inappropriate ‘jokes’ including one about there being a child locked in a cupboard under his stairs. If there was a checklist of everything you didn’t want from your celebrant, Barry ticked every box. When it came to the party the bride and groom spent the first hour or so embarrassed and apologising for the conduct of their celebrant, when they should have been relaxing and enjoying themselves. It’s a real shame they had this experience, when I know most Humanist celebrants have professional standards. They were very unlucky. Text by James Oakley, image from Library Two weeks after getting engaged my Fiancee tells me excitedly there's a wedding fayre at Pollok House.
Caught up in the giddy of excitement of new romance we went along with no idea of what to expect, no plans to arrange anything, no expectation that we would have any productive meetings while there. If you haven't been to Pollok House before, then I highly recommend a visit. The history of the building and grounds, the grand entrance, the place is well worth a visit at any time of year. A benefit of going to visit at a wedding fayre is the place is laid out to show you how good it can look, how the rooms can be used for entertaining and they give you a glass of sparkly wine too. We thought that the beautiful rooms of Pollok House a little small for our wedding party, but that didn't stop us having a great day out starting the adventure of planning our wedding and meeting a Humanist Celebrant called Gillian who months later we would ask to marry us. Immediately we found Gillian put us at ease and had lots of great ideas and really understood how my fiancee and I wanted our ceremony to be. Sometimes meeting your celebrant is like meeting your partner. Sometimes you just know they'll be perfect for you. |
AuthorsThe A Quiet Revolution blog features updates from the celebrants of A Quiet Revolution and their friends. Archives
November 2020
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