Quirky & Alternative Lochside Wedding

This gorgeous couple didn’t want just one day to celebrate their wedding, they decided to have a weekend extravaganza complete with a quiz night and Sunday BBQ. Isn’t that lovely?

Kelly and Stephen were married on the 13^th June 2015 at Altskeith Country House of Loch Ard in Scotland. They wanted to create a relaxed atmosphere with delicious cuisine and a rockin’ live band. The outdoor ceremony beside the loch looked particularly spectacular as did the donut cake of course.

Their DIY day was kept simple yet uber cool. Think pops of red in the attire, leopard print paper hearts and hand crafted paper bouquets too, amaze.

Thanks so much to Maureen Du Preez for sharing these sublime images with us.

THE PROPOSAL | We got engaged in February 2012 after almost 10 years together. My best friend lives in Australia and we’d been planning to go and visit them in 2013 so wedding planning was put on hold until after our holiday. That gave us plenty of time to have a real think about what we actually wanted our wedding to be.

THE VISION | We knew we didn’t want anything too traditional or formal. We wanted our guests to be relaxed and have an amazing time. Food was also important to us although we didn’t want a formal sit down meal we instead opted for a BBQ buffet style which was delicious, followed by a buffet of gourmet Scotch Eggs, Sausages Rolls and Frittata in the evening. We liked the idea of booking something for a weekend so started looking at venues that we could book for a few days. We also found an amazing band called Elwood to play our evening reception and they went down a storm. They have such a wide range of music and played everything from Deacon Blue to Metallica – there was something for everyone to dance or sing along to and the floor was filled all night.

THE PLANNING PROCESS | I really enjoyed the wedding planning, and since we had loads of time to plan we didn’t feel stressed at all. I loved looking through blogs and pinterest to get an idea on personal touches we could make ourselves to save some money.

THE VENUE | Altskeith Country House was only the 3^rd venue we looked at. Originally we were thinking of hiring a tipi for the gardens as the function hall in the house only held about 30 – 40 people and we had around 80 guests planned. The couple who own the house, Alison and Yas, were so welcoming – they had some amazing renovations planned for the house before our wedding which included the stunning new function hall with floor to ceiling glass doors which look out to a beautiful view. We went back for a 2^nd visit with our closest family in tow and while the house was still partially a building site, booked our big day. We had every faith in Alison and Yas’ visions and they exceeded them all. The house and surroundings are simply stunning. We even managed to get married outside although it was pretty windy.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | My dress and veil were from Opus in West Kilbride – the staff are so lovely, I can’t recommend them enough. My shoes are by Vivienne Westwood which were a wedding gift from my brother and sister-in-law. They were so comfortable that I lasted well into the night before I had to take them off.

FINDING THE DRESS | I’ve never been a great lover of shopping so was glad when I found my dress fairly easily. I set out wanting a tea length dress but there aren’t many shops hold stock of them and since I’m quite short, I found that they were all pretty long so it was hard to envision what it would look like properly. On my 3^rd outing we visited Opus in West Kilbride and the dress I got was in the window, as soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to try it on. They had just got the dress in brand new that day. My mum and sister in law said as soon as I came out in that dress, they knew by my face that was the one. I tried another half a dozen or so dresses on as well that day but couldn’t wait to go back to the tea length one and then didn’t want to take it off.

GROOM’S ATTIRE | Stephen’s outfit was from MacGregor and MacDuff in Glasgow. He bought his outfit and the rest were hired. Stephen’s boots were by New Rock.

THE READINGS & MUSIC | Stephen plays in a heavy metal band and their guitarist, Bob, had agreed to play some acoustic songs during the ceremony. Unfortunately Bob was ill just before the wedding and couldn’t make it – he did record himself playing the song I walked down the aisle to and sent it over to us. We then created a playlist on the iPad to play over some speakers for the signing of the register and walking back up the aisle. We each picked a reading for the ceremony. Stephen chose a poem called You and I have Learned by Leonard Nimoy and I chose lyrics from Ih-Ah by Devin Townsend to be read out.

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | Selecting my beautiful bridesmaids was easy. I was absolutely delighted when my friend who live is Australia agreed to be a bridesmaid and come over for the wedding. My sister-in-law, Lisa is also a very good friend and my school friend, Alison completed the trio. My bridesmaids are all very easy-going and have fairly similar tastes so there was no drama when it came to selecting the dresses. Lisa’s daughter, Grace was my flower girl and was only 16 months old at the time, so was very shy but made up for that in cuteness. My mum, Lisa and I had a few fun trips out with Grace finding her dress too.

THE FLOWERS | I was determined I didn’t want to spend a fortune on flowers. I found a few alternatives to carrying flowers but I wasn’t too sure about them. Then I came across an article where the bride made her flowers from crepe paper and they looked amazing. I stocked up with some crepe paper, floral tape and floral wire to give it a go. It took a lot of practice to get them to the standard I was happy with and I played around with colours a lot. I done 4 bouquets and a ball of flowers for my flower girl which took me about 6 months all in.

THE CAKE | Stephen is the one with the sweet tooth so I left this decision to him and he chose well. We had 200 Krispy Kreme donuts rather than a traditional cake! Stephen and his best man drove to Edinburgh to collect them all the day before the wedding. I’m sure a few got tested on the way back just to be sure they were OK.

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | I really dislike getting my picture taken but when we met with Maureen she completely understood and put us at ease. We wanted our photographs to reflect our day, natural and relaxed. We also had an engagement shoot with Maureen about 4 months before the wedding and that really helped give us a bit of a practice run. We are so happy with the end results from Maureen.

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | As the function room at our venue was so stunning we knew we wanted to keep the décor simple. We didn’t really set out to have a theme but Stephen knew I had some red in my dress and knew the bridesmaids were in black. I also love anything leopard print. We went a bit mad with the DIY for the decorations. We made 1000 paper origami stars which were sprinkled over the tables, each guest had a paper leopard print love heart at their place, a mab-lib card to fill out and I hand stamped all the name cards for the tables and our seating plan. A few days before the wedding I made 200 truffles as wedding favours for all our guests.

THE HONEYMOON | We had a mini-moon straight after the wedding, a few days in London. The mega-moon is planned for December 2016 with another trip back to Australia.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | We had the house booked out from Thursday until Monday with the wedding taking place on Saturday. Our immediate family and bridal party stayed at the house with us. Most of our family and friends came up to Aberfoyle for the weekend too so we had a Mr and Mrs style quiz on the Friday night and a BBQ on the Sunday. It was great to have the weekend with them and really enjoyed spending time with them all. The morning of our wedding was fantastic, the bridal party were all staying at the house and we all sat down to breakfast together before we all went to get ready. The girls all piled in our room to get ready and we had a lovely, chilled out morning getting ready – I didn’t feel stressed at all. While we were getting our official photographs taken with Maureen the male guests were getting up to their own mischief by stealing the ladies hats, fascinators and bags so they could have their own photograph shoot! We managed a few laughs at that from a distance while we were doing our own shoot. The evening reception was fantastic, as I mentioned the band were amazing and one of our guests even made an impromptu karaoke attempt, the drink was certainly flowing that night. Some of our guests said it’s the best wedding they have ever been to – we can’t ask for a bigger compliment than that. We only wish we could do it all again.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Enjoy the planning process as much as you can and don’t be afraid of doing something different. The day goes so quickly so try and take a short breather just to take it all in.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Photography | Maureen Du Preez

Venue | Altskeith Country House of Loch Ard

Catering | Big Bite Catering and Aye Love Real Food

Hair | Rochelle Jolley

Make up | Rosey Cheeks

Band | Elwood

Cake | Krispy Kreme

Groom | MacGregor and MacDuff

Ahh so fun!

Thanks so much to Kelly and Stephen for sharing their romantic nuptials with us xo Lou