Pastel Summer Marquee Country Estate Wedding

Oh I am really excited to share this utterly beautiful set of images and wedding story today. I defy you not to fall head over heels.

Jamie and Anna decided to get married on the 18^th July 2015 and hold their weekend celebrations at Harburn House in Scotland. The country estate was perfect for their plans which included rounders, afternoon tea and a treasure hunt on the Saturday followed by a breakfast on the Sunday morning before departing. It sounded like a really wonderful way of making the most of seeing all of your favourite people in once place.

The marquee looked wonderful decorated in pastels which included bunting, DIY stationery, fresh blooms and a stunning cake. Anna chose to wear a romantic Lusan Mandongus gown with flowers in her hair while Jamie and the boys opted for kilts.

Thanks goes to the brilliant Rooftop Mosaic for sending over these photographs.

THE PROPOSAL | Jamie and I are both from Glasgow originally but have been living in London for the last 4 years.

Jamie knows how important my family is to me. As part of a large Scottish & Irish family, I am extremely close to my 30+ first cousins, who mean the world to me.

In March 2014 during (what I thought would be) a routine visit to my Irish family, 2 days before my birthday, we were on a walk around Spelga Dam in the Mourne Mountains of Northern Ireland. It was a lovely cold day, such a beautiful part of the world and after walking around the lake we found a bench to sit on. I was day dreaming, looking out over the scenery, and I turned around to see Jamie on one knee.

He knew how important the place was to me as I had been going there since I was a child and knew I would want to be around my family when we broke the news. He had been planning it for months!

It was a wonderful, private proposal followed by a long weekend of celebrating with the people we love.

THE VISION | Both Jamie and I had the same vision for our wedding from the very beginning: chilled out, fun, personal wedding with no, pretension, fuss or drama! The main thing we wanted was enough time to interact with all our family and friends – rather than just looking down on them from a top-table – so we came up with the idea of extending the wedding day into a weekend. We knew that on the day of the wedding it’s hard to talk to everyone properly, and so instead we had the vision of sharing a “mini holiday” with our guests. Living in London away from most of our friends and family made this our top priority: a weekend full of activities, games, and as much food-eating and drink-sipping as we could manage!

THE PLANNING PROCESS | ..started a day after the engagement! We were engaged for 18 months in total and on the day Jamie proposed my mum ran out to the shops to buy wedding magazines!

BUDGET | We already had some money set aside but after we got engaged we went through 18 months of hard saving. We were also very lucky to have the help of our extremely generous parents, who were on hand to assist as well. The wedding cost more than we initially estimated, but after deciding to have 130 guests for a full weekend, meant we couldn’t do it for much less. Looking back on it now I’m glad we didn’t go crazy with the budget as it’s so easy to get sucked into all the little things “you have to have” but we managed to get a full weekend for what some people pay for one day. I’m glad we did it the way we did.

THE VENUE | Harburn House, West Calder, Scotland. Harburn House is an old Georgian mansion set on a country estate of around 3000 acres. Within the estate boundaries are several lodges all surrounded by beautifully landscaped gardens, woodlands, lochs and parkland. The lodges are all within walking distance of each other and were rented out for our family and friends to stay in. The venue was perfect for us because it catered to both of our essential needs: it had on-site accommodation which would allow our guests to be with us for the full weekend, and it had huge amounts of indoor and outdoor space which we could use to organise our activities and events.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | Lusan Mandungas dress Bought in Teokath in Wimbledon, London. My mum had bought me jewellery for my birthday to wear on the day along with my Granny’s old sapphire bracelet for something old, borrowed and blue.

FINDING THE DRESS | A lot more stressful that I thought! I’m not generally fussy with what I wear and I don’t get stressed when I go shopping but I think wedding dress shopping changed that! I didn’t have a “this is the one” dress moment – I kept waiting for it but I never had it which I think stressed me out the most. I think it happens for some people and doesn’t for others, but in the end I loved my dress and felt like a million dollars on the day!

Having to book appointments in advance was hard to manage. Also I would definitely advise you to go alone for the first appointment. I made the mistake of bringing my 5 bridesmaids, mother and mother-in-law to 5 appointments in one day – which was too much. I love them all but it was a lot of opinions in one day and too much to think about/organise! If you go alone or with one person first I think it helps give you a better idea of what you are looking for. That would be my advice anyway!

Also don’t be pressured into making a decision too quickly. I went to pick up my dress from the shop and get my first fitting two months before the wedding. I went with my mum to see my dress and take it away but when the lady in the shop unzipped the bag and said “here’s your dress”. I replied with “No it’s not!!”

There had been a mix-up with the order and the wrong dress had been delivered. I was then told that the dress I had picked had been discontinued! So by this point I was really stressed and trying not to cry in the shop. The girls in Teokath were lovely however and instantly said don’t worry we will fix this. They ordered the dress from the designer and it came within four weeks.

GROOM’S ATTIRE | Jamie wore a traditional Scottish kilt – of course! It was a custom tartan that was designed by the Glasgow kilt shop he bought it from; Kilts 4 U: The tartan was called Spirit of Lochearn, and was a tribute to the shop owner’s granddad, who had recently passed away. Jamie instantly connected with the story behind the tartan as well as its unusual grey and purple colours. We hired the groomsmen outfits, with matching tartan, whilst Jamie bought his outfit; another way to save the pennies and is common in Scotland!

THE READINGS & MUSIC | We had a Roman Catholic ceremony with a blessing as I am Catholic and Jamie is an Atheist. I walked down the aisle to “Caledonia” which was lovely as it was our Scottish twist to the ceremony and meant a lot to us.

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | What can I say – they are the best! My big cousin Eileen, my sister-in-law Millie and my three best friends since forever – Elaine, Cat and Rach. We matched the colour of their dresses to Jamie’s kilt and I wanted a colour that would stand out in photos so I think the purple worked well! I gave them an old fashioned brooch each to wear on the day to make it a little different.

THE FLOWERS | They were provided by the amazing Stockbridge Flower Company based in Stockbridge, Edinburgh. Kate Dunbar was amazing! She was so lovely to work with and captured what I wanted exactly! I had only met her once and the rest was done via emails and photos as I was in London when I was organising it all. I gave her my budget and she absolutely delivered.

I wanted country flowers, simple and not fussy. I like pastel colours and thought they would go well with the darker purple of the bridesmaid dresses. My mum is a keen gardener so I brought her along with me to meet Kate; she knew the names of all the flowers whereas I had just seen them in photos. A few Scottish thistles were a must!

THE CAKE | This was made by my little brother. It was his wedding gift to us as he is an amazing baker and I wanted something simple that everyone would actually like the taste of! I didn’t get the chance to eat any of it in the end as it was wolfed up when it went out with the buffet. I also think wedding cakes are so expensive and so this was somewhere where we were lucky to save money on.

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | Gail Kelly at Rooftop Mosaic based in Glasgow. Jamie and I hate posing for photos so when it came to a photographer we both knew that we didn’t want to spend half the day away from our guests while we posed for “romantic pictures”. I wanted our family and friends captured more than us in the photos as there is so much of the day that you miss when you are the bride and groom. ‘Candid and natural’ was what we wanted and that was what we got! We had a few obligatory family photos and couple portraits but we made it clear that we wanted these done quickly so that we could get back to the party which Gail organised amazingly! Our photos are lovely and Gail was a pleasure to work with. She was in the background and didn’t impose at all on the day. She captured all of the detail and our guests which we couldn’t be more thankful for.

THE & DÉCOR | We had arranged a day of activities and games for the Friday before the wedding. We made itineraries for the weekend mapping out what would be happening when, like afternoon tea, a treasure hunt, rounders, football etc. and placed these in our guest’s bedrooms. I thought this was an added touch to make the experience more personable for our guests.

We wanted our wedding to be relaxed and informal. We also wanted everyone to get to know one another before the big day as we had people coming in from all over the world. Later that night, we had a hog roast and drinks with music and dancing in the Stables barn at Harburn House – a pre-warm up party!

We were married on the Saturday and it managed to stay dry all day which in Scotland you must always be thankful for

On Sunday we had a breakfast cooked for all guests so that everyone could nurse their hangovers before heading off. It was a great chance to see everyone and thank them for coming before leaving.

Almost everything was DIY, and made by Jamie, myself, and our families. Invitations, menus, names cards, table numbers, table plan, photo booth, wooden heart frames ….. If I saw an idea I liked I instantly thought of a way I could do it myself for cheaper. It was a lot more work and maybe more stressful but in the end I’m glad we did it as it was the little touches that made the décor more “us” and we still managed to stick to our budget.

I guess if you were to describe it the theme would have been a classic country wedding.

THE HONEYMOON | We delayed our honeymoon until 6 months after the wedding and then travelled between Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Malaysia for 4 weeks in January 2016. It was nice to still have something to look forward to as after the wedding once we had nothing left to plan. We used a honeymoon fund as a wedding list instead of gifts. This meant our guests were able to buy us experiences on our honeymoon such as scuba diving, cooking classes, dinners etc.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | It’s hard to pick one!

I think one thing that was really lovely was arriving to the church in the vintage bus. Instead of traditional wedding cars we hired a vintage bus which we loved! They drove all the way up from Cumbria and it was lots of fun being driven to the church in it and to the venue. It was lovely because parishioners and people from the village were waiting outside the church to cheer for us when we arrived which made it extra special.

The whole weekend was perfect, so many memories that we will cherish for the rest of our lives.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Don’t get sucked into the wedding hype. It’s the most magical day of your life but it’s not something worth stressing about or arguing over. Things will go wrong on the day, people will have opinions, you will worry about money and who to invite but at the end of the day it’s your wedding, your day and your vision. If you want to cut corners cut them, if you want to do something different, do it; just keep aiming for the day you want.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Photography | Rooftop Mosaic

Flowers | Stockbridge Flower Company

Our wedding car/bus | Cumbria Classic Coaches

Caterers | Thomson Cooks Catering

Our band | Bahookie

Dress | Teokath London

Kilt | Kilts4u

Just perfect.

Jamie and Anna, thank you both SO much for sharing your wedding story with us xo Lou