Colourful & Relaxed Dinner Party Wedding

A very warm welcome to Christie and Lewis who are sharing with us their darling dinner party wedding today.

Set at Pollokshield Burgh Hall in Scotland, their day was just effortlessly beautiful, bursting with personality and meaningful touches. Swoon.

I love it ALL, from the stylish outfits to the illustrated stationery and vibrant flowers, their day oozes love and fun. Thanks ever so much to Lou Rob Photo for sharing with us these sensational images.

Dinner Party Wedding

The Proposal

Lewis proposed in St Andrews on West Sands Beach. I have a sweet tooth, so he got ‘will you marry me?’ iced on a giant doughnut.

The Vision

Like a dinner party with all our nearest and dearest but dressed to the nines.

Budget

Under 20k

The Venue

Pollokshields Burgh Hall, Glasgow

The Ceremony & Music

I walked down the aisle to Mr Blue Sky by the Electric Light Orchestra, played on the Harp by the fabulous Sarah MacNeil.

We had a humanist ceremony delivered by the amazing Ronit Quayle. Our ceremony was intimate, funny, simple; an insight into our 10 year relationship. We got married on our hall rug so we can remember this moment every time we come home.

Your Outfits

Christie

During the day: Jess dress from Ann Priscilla Bridal, with some modifications to the top to make it suit my frame more. Picked it because of the amazing dramatic over skirt, old Hollywood vibes and it was budget-friendly.

During the evening, I wore a backless slip dress with a scarf. This was a Savannah Miller dress I got second-hand.
Shoes – satin kitten heels with a giant bow, from a Ukrainian seller on Etsy (JadeBridalShoes). I wanted something low and comfortable.
Earrings – blue cameo earrings with a pear drop – my something blue.
Necklace – a vintage pearl drop necklace I already had and loved.
Veil – the cheapest ones I could find in the shop! My dress was bringing the drama so this was an area I wanted to save some money. I went for a simple 1 tiered veil with a satin edge.

Lewis

Lewis rented a blue kilt with a prince Charles jacket and waistcost to bring more of a back tie vibe, which really worked with the style of my dress.

Your Photographer & Filmmaker

Photographer: Lou Rob

Stunning, joyful, colorful, artistic relaxed photo.
Personal touches, goes the extra 100 miles for her couples.
We had so many of our friends say the photos were incredible.

Filmmaker: Sugar8

Vintage, home-style video using combination of digital and super8 camera. This combination is just magic and makes your wedding video feel even more of a treasure.
When we saw the preview it brought back every emotion of the day and more. I’m not sure how Eileen managed to capture the feel of the whole day in 10 seconds but she did.
When we watched the video back and shared with friends and family there were a few tears!

Both Eileen and Lou were the most kind, supportive, funny and relaxed people to have around you on your wedding day.

The Honeymoon

Lewis and I went to Sicily for a week after our wedding which was a pasta, gelato and seaside dream.

For our guest book, we got a pack of personalised playing cards from Etsy and asked our guests to sign the back. We took the cards to Sicily with us, playing games on the beach and reading all the gorgeous messages our friends and family had left us.

The Styling & Decor

Our venue is stunning on its own with its beautiful stained glass windows and Scottish Baronial architecture and so we went light on decorations to let the venue sing and save some budget.

I brought my blue and white ceramic collection from home to the venue and our amazing florist, Flowers Vermillion, incorporated these into beautiful displays for our ceremony, on the band stage, and tables during the meal. We moved the flower displays around over the course of the day to get most use of them. At the end of the night, we announced to our guests to take a bunch of flowers home with them which was so special because for days after our guests were sending us pictures of our wedding flowers in their homes, that they had dried to keep, or even some bunched that made it to nightclubs after our wedding! The flowers were absolutely magical, Flowers Vermillion is incredibly talented, and their displays completely brought the day to life.

A really special part of our wedding was my gorgeous, kind and talented friend Tina designing our wedding stationery, including our invites, menu, welcome sign and seating plan. It was such a joy to spend this time with her in the run up to the wedding and truly was one of my favourite parts of the wedding preparations.

Our delicious cake was made by Sneaky Beets (Nikki) and was a three-tiered, frilly green masterpiece topped off with flowers from Flowers Vermillion. I unfortunately did not get a piece which I will forever regret but I’m told it was delicious and there was none left at the end of the night which speaks for itself!

Flavours

Olive oil and citrus sponge w/ pistachios, jam made from all the berries in Nikki’s garden finished with olive oil and pistachio Swiss buttercream.
Devil’s food cake, with salty caramel middles and burnt dark sugar swiss meringue buttercream.

Memorable Moments

Walking down the aisle and seeing Lewis standing in the beautiful light coming through the stained glass windows, among the stunning flower displays.
Walking out for the confetti throw and the joy of seeing all the people I love among all the colour and happiness.
My bridesmaid Ruth arranged a lovely surprise where she put party poppers on the guest seats and organised a party popper toast to me, which was so special and thoughtful as I don’t drink alcohol.
The food by The Green Light was unreal. So delicious and the sharing plates format really created the dinner party feel we were going for. So many people said it was the best food they had had at a wedding, and are still talking about the salt and chilli tofu.
Seeing all our nearest and dearest ceilidh the night away.

Advice For Other Couples

Make your logistics plans for the day earlier than I did. I did this a few weeks before, but I think it would have been useful to do it earlier to have a better sense of how everything would run together and ease some stress!
Include your friends and family in the planning and build special memories from your wedding in the run-up as well as on the big day.
Eat your wedding cake.