Nature Inspired Rustic Outdoor Meadow Wedding

Tim and Paulina are gracing our pages today with their magical Comrie Croft wedding in Perthshire, Scotland held on the 2^nd May 2019. They were married in the meadow surrounded by trees and a beautiful flower arch before partying the night away in the rustic barns. Their day was a fusion of Australian, Polish and Scottish cultures, which all came together so beautifully to create a really personal and memorable celebration.

Their wedding was focused on nature and the surroundings with gorgeous flowers, incredible outfits and some amazing cuisine. A lot of fun was had too by the sounds of it, the DJ put on some wedding games that entertained guests, how brilliant. Paulina wore two beautiful dresses, the first a whimsical 3D flower gown with veil and flower crown and the second a short 1950s style number for dancing, she looked amazing! Tim meanwhile opted for a check waistcoat and jacket, navy trousers, tan shoes and a floral tie, very dapper indeed.

John Elphinstone Stirling was there to capture all the fun moments, the touching first look and every little detail, so gorgeous! Thanks for sharing these images with us John.

The Proposal

Tim is from Australia and Paulina is Polish but lives in Scotland. We met in Melbourne whilst Paulina was on student exchange and after she returned home to Glasgow, we started a long-distance relationship.

Paulina dropped the question over Skype, totally ruining Tim’s plans to propose on a future trip to Whitsunday Island.

The Vision

Relaxed two-day wedding, with a big Australian/Polish BBQ the night before and lots of accommodation so our families and friends could all stay together and hang out with us. We wanted a mixture of Australian, Polish and Scottish cultures and an outdoor ceremony.

The Planning Process

Lots of long nights between the two of us, lots of mind-maps, A-boards and colour cards. We also made sure we met everyone we chose in person. Attended a couple of wedding fairs with our bridesmaids, but mostly researched online and spoke with our parents about details.

The Venue

Comrie Croft

Beautiful venue with lots of options for ceremony. Our plan A was to get married in the meadow between the trees but we also had plan, B, C, and even D.

We also had space for everyone to stay overnight, lots of living rooms/lounge areas to chill in, and the most beautiful area for the bridal party to get ready, cheekily called ‘The Last Chance Saloon’.

And finally we had lots of beautiful outdoor space for our wedding photos, including an actual waterfall!

Your Outfits & Accessories

Tim’s suit – Forbes Tailoring in Glasgow

Why: Original suits that you wouldn’t see on every groom. Beautifully designed and cut to measure, with an amazing waistcoat and great colour.

Shoes – River Island

Tie- Marks & Spencer

Shirt – Burton

Paulina’s dress and veil – from Eleganza Sposa, designer: Savin London.

Jewellery – Paulina’s mom’s wedding necklace – which she wore to her own wedding many years ago, and pearl earrings gifted by her mom as well.

Paulina fell in love with Savin London designs, and it was actually between three of his dresses. The combination of the 3D flower dress and veil was something that could work amazingly with a flower crown and our amongst-the-greenery wedding. Also the maid of honour described it as the perfect “fairy queen” dress.

First couple’s dance dress- as we did a jive, Paulina got a 50s style white dress from that she wouldn’t trip over from British Retro.

Shoes – custom order from Etsy, wanted comfortable low heel flats that still felt bridal. It was hard to find anything that fit this description in the shops.

The Readings & Music

Music played off a Bluetooth speaker (bought off a couple that got married at Comrie Croft beforehand). We used this speaker for speeches as well as it came with a mic!

Celebrant – Humanist celebrant Vivienne Hyndman

Vivienne created a beautiful personalised ceremony for us, which included ring-warming as well as hand-fasting and a Celtic blessing at the end. We created our own hand-fasting belt thanks to Altergirls who created it out of the excess fabric from Paulina’s dress.

DJ – Collin Bell – Wedding and Party DJ

The DJ was amazing and jumped at the opportunity to lead some wedding games, polish style. Including musical chairs with a twist, the coachman game with a penalty, a groomsmen/bridesmaids dance off, and a ceilidh.

Maid of Honour – read a Celtic blessing and shared a drink of whisky with us from a Quaich.

Bridesmaids

All different stores, all the bridesmaids agreed to match a pastel colour theme. Each one chose a different pastel colour and a maxi length dress. We wanted the girls to feel comfortable and didn’t want to choose a set-style, colour.

To make it more cohesive, we ordered matching flower hair combs and a flower crown (for the maid of honour) and got little flower bouquets from Tomnah’a Market Garden.

Beauty

Louise Quinn for hair. Laura Sutherland for make-up. (Natural, boho inspired themes. The ladies were amazing.)

Groomsmen

Ties – Marks & Spencer

Suspenders – Amazon

Suits, shoes, shirts all bought by groomsmen from different stores, as apart from one they travelled from different countries. They just matched them to a royal blue colour and a tan shoe to match Tim’s suit.

Your Photographer

John Elphinstone Stirling

Best photographer ever, super relaxed, casual and did heaps of candid photos which is the style we were going for! John was there for such a long time, he almost ran out of space for pictures. Also every time he thought we got everything, something new would be happening and he would have to stay on longer. He also made our ‘first wedding look’ very special.

The Flowers

Tomnah’a Market Garden – wild flowers.

They created wedding bouquets, a flower crown for Paulina, boutonnières (which we forgot to give to the boys!), flower confetti, barn column decorations, a beautiful archway and as the wedding before us had wreaths hanging in the barn ceiling – the girls from Tomnah’a left them hanging for us before taking them down.

The Details & Décor

Wedding Lighting Hire Scotland for props – They were fab and we got to set everything up ourselves. Tim’s mum and our maid of honour’s mum took charge and created the most magical set-up we could have ever dreamt of.

Selfie Mirror by Melissa was a fun addition, they also had a free video message box set up. It was great and we even recorded a message to ourselves just seconds before running into the barn for our first dance.

We did a traditional polish greeting with bread and salt, and breaking of glass.

Our caterer was fabulous and everyone praised the food, they also looked after all of our guests and us amazingly.

The bar was provided by the same team that delivered our props. Honestly couldn’t have had a better group of people looking after our wedding.

And our BBQ the night before was our Australian element with lots of polish sausages and homemade moonshine.

Set up a homemade meat table spread near the bar, which included sausages, smoked ham, as well as polish pickles.

The Cake

The Little Cake Parlour in Glasgow. Three tiered cake with an Australian mud cake flavour (which she has made for the first time ever, especially for us, and it was amazing!), lemon, and cream and fruit.

Paulina’s mum and aunties also baked lots of polish cakes, which were displayed on little cake trays besides (trays bought online and in Lidl).

The Honeymoon

Gran Canaria

Memorable Moments

• During our wedding ceremony and the ring-warming element, there was a beautiful moment when Tim’s parents both held our wedding bands clasped between their hands. It was touching, and made everyone tear up.
• Our first dance and Tim throwing me up in the air.
• Eye of the Tiger as our wedding couple entrance song for the first dance.
• Paulina’s wedding vows and including Zombie’s into her wedding vows. It read: ‘And if you turned into a zombie, I would let you bite me and we could be zombies together forever’.
• Our first look and both of us crying, whilst Tim’s 10-year old niece looked at us from a distance with a look of absolute distaste.
• One of the groomsmen sprinting out of the Coachman game after the moonshine penalty shot was too much for him to handle.
• Paulina’s flower girls dropping the whole basket of flower confetti into Paulina’s veil.
• The moment the night before, after everyone went to sleep and we snuck into the barn and saw the room set up for the first time. It was just the two of us and was beautiful.

Advice For Other Couples

Get everyone involved. Don’t try to do it all yourself, your friends and family will more than happily help you!

If you can afford it, definitely get a wedding planner – we could have used one for the final few weeks and on the actual day just to make it less stressful for us!

Choose a wedding venue that feels right to you two and no one else. And always meet in person with everyone. We chose all of our suppliers, based on how our in person meeting went and they were all fantastic and made our wedding day unforgettable!

Credit Where Credit Is Due

Oh so romantic and really very pretty too.

Tim and Paulina thank you ever so much for sharing with us your really wonderful wedding story xo Lou