Every time that I am asked to photograph a wedding at Oxenfoord Castle is a special occasion and this was no exception. I am very fortunate to be a trusted recommended supplier with Oxenfoord Castle and know the best wedding photography locations in the Castle and its grounds very well.
Carolyne and Ken met due to their mutual interest in running marathons; Carolyne an Edinburgh native met Ken, an American special forces soldier, whilst at university in America. With it being the brides prerogative on selecting the wedding location, they decided to have an Edinburgh wedding and chose Oxenfoord Castle.
Ken and his american friends who came over for the wedding, became adopted scots for the day and all hired kilts which looked fantastic.
Carolyne and Ken had their wedding ceremony at Cranstoun Church which is just a short walk up the hill from Oxenfoord Castle. It was a moving service punctuated with great humour and readings before the wedding vows.
Despite the threatening stormy clouds we were treated to a fantastic day which allowed Carolyne and Ken to be piped down the avenue of trees and over the stunning arched bridge to be met with champagne at Oxenfoord.
After a bit of mingling with friends and family, Carolyne and Ken slipped away for a little while for the wedding photo shoot to explore the many locations Oxenfoord has to offer.
Below are some of my favourite images of their Oxenfoord wedding from the day.
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]]>Bespoke Wedding Favours & Table Decorations | The Artful Robin
I had another photoshoot this morning with the incredibly talented Artful Robin; Robin has been commissioned to do another set of wedding favours after one of my brides saw a previous blog post for a wedding cake decoration he had made a friend as a wedding gift.
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It’s the biggest day of your life as a couple and you want it to be a fairytale – but the costs add up; use the tips below to help make some savings.
- The perfect day doesn’t mean spending loads look for bargains where you can find them. Work out what you can afford and then try and figure out how to stay within that. You don’t need to spend thousands on a big fancy hotel if all you want is a great party! Don’t overspend and put yourselves in financial difficulty for the sake of a fancy wedding day.
- If you have a wedding savings account; make sure it is making the most interest possible. Put it in the highest earning account possible if you do not need to access it for a while.
- make a list of everything you need to spend money on and stick to it; so many things can be handmade from invitations to wedding favours, get the family involved to help out. It will make the wedding day that much more personal and more memorable.
- If your wedding is a while in coming think everyday how you can save for it; cutting out the morning latte could save over £700!
- Look out for credit card deals that give cash back on expenditure, and buy all of your wedding supplies on this card.
- Don’t have your wedding on a Saturday, there are often great deals to be had by having your wedding on a less popular day of the week; look out for some deals or contact your chosen venue and see if they can do you a deal.
- Haggle with everyone; venues are competing for business as are all wedding suppliers; some may do you a deal.
- Go to a less popular or smaller venue and save ££, some out of the way venues cost a fraction of their city centre counterparts.
- Have a huge picnic in a nice park with all of your friends……and hope the weather stays nice!
- Look out for a second hand dress; there are lots of sites, such as preloved, sellmyweddingdress etc.
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I had an enquiry recently about a wedding; the bride wanted to book a particular venue, however, she couldn’t contact the venue (it was in the holidays!) so she had no idea of the cost. As it turned out the cost was way, way above her budget so she reluctantly had to look elsewhere. So that got me thinking, what kind of a wedding could you have for the cost of the venue hire alone? In some cases the venue hire cost can be as high as £4000 alone; surely that is going to give you a wedding party that you will remember!
There are many wedding venues that cost incredibly little, a wedding in Neidpath Castle for 
example costs about £750 plus VAT to hire the Castle. However, you have to put in an awful lot of work to ‘dress’ the venue; but think on the positive side of things, your wedding will be totally unique! Sarah and Ewan’s families did all the decorations and Sarah and her mum even went to cake making classes and produced a stunning cake!
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An awful lot of time is spent on choosing the right wedding venue and rightly so; it is where you will spend the majority of your wedding day and you want it to be right for you. There are whole Pinterest boards dedicated to wedding venues; castle, barns and beaches.
We are lucky in Scotland to have the right to pretty much marry anywhere we wish in addition to having some amazing venues and spectacular locations.
So, how to choose? Well; first up would be to have a good idea of the kind of wedding you want to have…..grand, relaxed, etc and then look for the venue that suits that theme. There are many outstanding castles and grand houses to rent exclusively just as there are some quite extraordinary small out of the way locations that just need a little imagination to give it the ‘wow factor’.
Are you willing to travel or wanting to stay local? You might want to think about how your guests are going to get there if you go too far off the beaten track. Do you want city centre hubbub or countryside peace and quiet? Do you want ancient Scottish history or cool modern chic?
Things to consider for your wedding venue & questions to ask:
In no particular order!
- Location – local or travel?
- Will the venue be exclusive to you? You don’t want uninvited guests gatecrashing the evening dancing.
- Availability of local accommodation for your guests
- Travel time between ceremony and reception (if they are not hosted together) – if you have a long way to travel this will eat in to your photos / mingling time before the meal
- £££ – how much do you have to spend?
- how many guests will you have – most if not all will have a maximum
- What is the pricing structure of the venue and what are the hidden costs?
- can you supply your own wine and or bubbly?
- Make use of online sites like moposa.com for planning your wedding and budgeting, even doing the seating plan!
- Is VAT included in the costs?
- When can you get access to the venue?
- Can you decorate the venue with your own theme
I will look at some of these points in further posts……
Take care of yourselves.
Ross
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]]>It is becoming increasingly popular for the Bridal couple to provide some kind of 
entertainment at their wedding reception. It used to entertaining enough simply to watch the oldies bust their moves on the dance floor! Couples are becoming increasingly inventive below are some options for all budgets –
Pop up Casino, comedians, magicians, face painting for kids, pick’n’mix sweets, themed Photo Booth, aerobatic shows, steel band, traditional fireworks, bouncy castle, croquet, giant jenga, horse/pony riding for kids, lots of options out there if you fancy doing something a little different for your wedding reception!
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To Marquee or not to…..Marquee’s get a pretty bad rap in my opinion. Yes, there are some pretty dodgy ones out there that are not fit for purpose but there are many, many fine wedding venues that use them and they are worth more than a cursory glance. Take Gilmerton House for example; this is a wonderful private house that is quite new to the wedding market. It has been a very popular addition to wedding venues in Scotland and uses a bespoke stand alone marquee for the larger wedding receptions. A lot of wedding couples discount marquees because they think they cannot handle the kinds of weather that we get here in Scotland. I have been in many marquees during severe storms and they have been completely watertight. Most marquee companies will offer the full service to decorate your marquee to suit your wedding theme. The marquee companies have heaters included in the hire costs, along with toilet facilities so that no-one need go outside if it is raining. There are many marquee companies that have separate zones within the marquee for bar and lounge areas for your guests to relax.
Top tip, don’t discount a wedding venue if they have a marquee and remember that a marquee will travel; find a fantastic site and have your unique wedding anywhere!
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]]>GreenCat Construction recently commissioned me to produce images for use on their new website and marketing materials. GreenCat Construction is the construction arm of the rapidly growing GreenCat Renewables company which specialises in wind turbine and hydro renewable energy. This will be an ongoing shoot as the projects progress through the various stages of construction culminating in the final images of the finished projects. Click here for more construction images.
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There are many great ways to celebrate your hen and stay do from the sublime to the ridiculous and from the cheap and cheerful to crazy expensive. Below I have listed a few alternative ideas for all budgets! One tip, get the price from the venue before you tell them it is a stag or hen party; the price often goes up if they know!
Camping
There is nothing quite like sitting round a campfire with a beer and your best mates having a great laugh about the good times you have had over the years. There are no bouncers, no girls to get you into trouble and no hassle! It is a great option if you are on a budget and if you and your friends are festival goers you’ll have most of the kit anyway! There are many great campsites in Scotland that allow fires; check out Tibbie Shiels in at St Mary’s Loch, they even have a tepee that sleeps 10!
Zorb Football
The only way to explain Zorb Football would be to youtube it – typical way for grown men to act as kids! Approx £30pp for 60 mins
Indoor Climbing
If you haven’t already been then a visit the worlds largest indoor climbing wall at Ratho provides a very cost effective bit of excitement before settling into the alcohol!
Ice Factor
Scale the biggest indoor ice-climbing wall in the world found in Kinlocheven. Full day of activities is £70pp and includes aerial assault, rock climbing, abseiling as well; min party of 6.
Oktoberfest
Munich is the home of the original and best Oktoberfest and is still one of the favourite stag and hen party destination. Almost 7 million litres of beer were sold last year; imagine the hangovers! Flights from Glasgow to Munich approx £130pp
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Here is the top ten of wedding favours for 2014; each year brides and grooms get more creative in their choices of favours. Lots of choices here. http://www.confetti.co.uk/shop/wedding-favours/personalised-wedding-favours
- Booze – Miniatures of Whiskey, Port pretty much anything you want – http://www.messageonabottle.biz
- Lottery Ticket – make it a condition that any jackpot gets split 50/50!
- Lip Balm for the girls
- Tablet – save a few pennies by getting a family member to make it for you then bag it up with some twine.
- Seeds – this is a new fun idea, a flowering reminder of your wedding. £1.99 from notonthehighstreet
- Hangover survival kit – a paper bag filled with essentials to get your guests through the ‘morning after’ haze.
- Disposable cameras – let your guests take your evening fun shots for you; just remember there will be some editing to do!
- Personalised memory stick with your names and wedding date on from usb2u
- Fragrances – perfume for the girls and eau de cologne for the boys.
- Charity trolley token – a practical keyring for supermarket trolleys and helping your favourite charity as well.
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Marie and Michael’s wedding could best be described as a real ‘family affair’! Her mum made her dress, her Uncle wrote out the invitations, another relative made the cake, practically every element of the wedding was created or provided by a friend or relative!! It just goes to prove that you don’t need to spend an awful lot of money to have the most wonderful day. It was a day filled with laughter from the moment I arrived at Marie’s mums house to the end of the dancing in the evening. Every one had an absolute ball!!
It was a great pleasure to be asked to take part in their day!!
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Dornoch Cathedral Wedding
Kirsty and Mark contacted me about 18months ago to ask me to photograph their Highland wedding in Dornoch Cathedral. They even made the booking without even having a chat face to face!! We did finally meet up over a coffee and a chat in a hotel in Edinburgh one time when they were down and we immediately hit it off. They were planning one of the most relaxed Highland weddings ever! The venue was to be Dornoch Cathedral and then Bogbain Farm, where there was going to be activities such as archery available for the guests! Needless to say it was a spectacular Highland wedding day, Kirsty looked fabulous and we had an amazing time, even the weather was kind, it poured down whilst we were travelling between Dornoch and Bogbain!!
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Weddings in Ayr
I had the great pleasure of being recommended by a previous client to Kathryn and Douglas who asked me to photograph their Glasgow wedding at the Racecourse Hotel in Ayr. We had the most amazing weather which allowed Kathryn her dream of arriving at her wedding in a horse drawn carriage. With the ceremony being a late start we had the unusual scenario of taking the Bride and Groom shots after the meal, however, this allowed for a very relaxed flavour to the shoot. A cracking couple and a cracking day!!
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Clan Donald Weddings in Skye
Emma & Gordon’s wedding in Clad Donald, Skye.
Emma and Gordon had the most fantastic weather for their wedding in Clan Donald on the Isle of Skye, during the preceding week it had been awful, cold and wet and then come the weekend the sun shone and the temperatures soared; a perfect start to their married life together!
We had a great time, they were a lovely coupe to work with and together we created some lovely images that have gone into a stunning Jorgensen Studio Album that they will cherish for years to come. An album like this will last for generations and hopefully they will, one day have grandchildren to show it too!!
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A wedding is a momentous occasion for a new couple and their families. Many people think that lots of money needs to be spent to make the day memorable and classy but this is not the case. It is possible to have a very lovely wedding without going in to debt. This article will give lots of creative ideas and money-saving tips to help you plan a day you will never forget.
Make sure that at your wedding, there are enough refreshments for all of your guests. During the night, there will be a lot of dancing and conversing, which can lead to dehydration. Prepare accordingly by having a lot of quality water and soda in many different locations at your wedding.
When planning for your wedding, the time of day could greatly affect your cost. If you are having an evening wedding, you will have to serve dinner which costs more than serving your guests lunch. If you serve alcohol, more people will drink heavily in the evening than they would at lunch time.
If you choose to take care of your own food serving at your wedding, try going to wholesale stores, such as Costco. When shopping wholesale, you can get large amounts of food for cheaper than you could if you did not wholesale shop. Consider asking your friends to help with the costs of food.
An outdoor wedding has its own natural beauty but you should still check on the place where your wedding will be held right before your wedding. Check to make sure that the grass has been mowed, leaves have been raked, and it is clear of debris. If you notice something that you do not like, make sure it is taken care of before your wedding day.
If you’re already living with your spouse-to-be and don’t really need housewares for wedding gifts, ask for cash instead. If you include a cute little poem asking people to consider giving you a cash gift instead of something you can’t use, you’ll be saving them the time it takes to shop and helping pay for your honeymoon!
If you’re going to be photographing a wedding, make sure to visit the location where the wedding will be held so you know what angles will be available to you and what barriers might get in your way. If you know where everything is you’ll have a much easier time on the wedding day.
If you’re on a tight budget for your wedding, ask your family if they can help supply the flatware and plates for the tables at your reception. You can match only the items on a single table as most people won’t be looking at what is on the other tables around them. Most people won’t even notice! The best part is that you can send the dirty dishes home with them for cleaning, saving you additional cost for the extra time at your venue.
One of the things that you should try to implement is a day of rest after your wedding. This will give you the time that you need to recover, both from a mental and physical standpoint. After resting this day, you will be able to have an energetic and lovely honeymoon.
Try to use a limousine driver that you know and trust so that you do not have to get worried on the day of your wedding. Make sure that he shows up in advance and pay him the extra hour to sit and wait for you. This will ensure that you arrive on time.
The most important preparation for a wedding is to expect the unexpected. When it happens, laugh it off and let someone in your wedding party deal with it. No matter what it is, it will be resolved, and you’ll look back and laugh at it someday. Really, it’s true!
If you are using a wedding planner, it is important that you work with them to make the seating arrangements. You know your guests, so you know who should be seated with whom. A wedding planner is just going to randomly put people together, which could end up causing tension and stress at your wedding reception.
When choosing a caterer or a vendor for your wedding, look for someone you can trust. If the vendor is doing its best to work with you and find out what you want, you have found the right one. If the vendor’s main concern is getting paid, you might have run into a scam.
Send out save the date cards in advance of your formal invitation. Save the date cards can be sent out several months in advance, giving your guests time to find and book the best travel arrangements. In addition, you get your wedding on your guests’ calendar early, so that other events don’t interfere with them being able to make it on your special day.
When you mail out your wedding invitations, make sure that you mail them out all at the same time. When guests receive their invitation they are bound to talk to others that they believe will be attending the wedding as well. The last thing you want is for someone to feel left out because they were part of the later batch.
Make your own decorations for the wedding reception. Enlist your friends and family members for help in creating favors, centerpieces and other decorations. Look for the unique talents that these individuals may be able to offer; if someone has nice handwriting, ask them to address your invitations and offer a service of your own in return.
Have your wedding registry with more than one store. This way, you can accommodate a range of budgets and sensibilities. You’ll be more likely to receive wedding gifts from those who can afford to buy expensive items, as well as from those whose budget may not as big as their hearts.
Wedding Photography
When it comes to your wedding photography, don’t trust the task to a friend. Unless your friend is a professional photographer, they will not adequately capture your memories. You want these memories to show quality, to be spontaneous, and to last a lifetime. A friend might capture some of those elements, but they just won’t be able to capture them all.
Though it takes time and some effort to plan, you don’t need to spend lots of money to have a happy, enjoyable wedding. Use the suggestions and ideas that you read in this article and you can have a beautiful wedding day that you will always remember with joy.
]]>The George Hotel Edinburgh Wedding.
Last Sunday saw Laura and James tie the knot in The George Hotel, Edinburgh in front of family and friends who had travelled from as far afield as America and The Shetland Islands! with it being a December wedding we were not guaranteed favourable weather, however, we were lucky to spend a little time in Queen Street Gardens.
The room was dressed and the brides flowers were arranged by the excellent Roseparks.
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Jelena and John, along with their friends and family enjoyed a whirlwind castle you around the Borders, taking in Traquair, Thirlstane before finishing with dinner at Dalhousie. Despite the weather being typically Scottish it didn’t put them off doing the photo shoot, a dream to work with and a lovely couple too!!
Jelena & John’s Pre-Wedding shoot at Prestonfield House coincided with Jelena’s birthday so it was a double celebration! The couple travelled over from Houston with their close friends and family for a weeks sightseeing prior to their wedding at Lennoxlove. We decided to do some shots to get familiar with each other, they were a great couple to work with and we all had a great time.
After dinner the party took a Big Red Bus tour of Edinburgh taking in the city skyline and a glorious sunset!
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Pittodrie House Hotel hosted the wedding reception for Annie and Chris Robertson-Graham. They had a fantastic fun filled family and friends affair who came from far and wide to make sure the day was a success.
Annie and Chris broke with tradition by seeing each other prior to the wedding; Annie crept up behind Chris to surprise him which brought about an emotional response. They chose to make the most of their time by having part of their wedding shoot before the service before making their way to the church at Chapel of Garioch, where Annie’s godfather who had come over from L.A, provided much entertainment during the service.
Despite the squally showers which didn’t put them off we made use of the grounds around the hotel to get some cracking images.
The night ended with some great dancing and Chris revealing who really wears the trousers in the relationship! Other than Chris, the other two members of the family are Mr Blue Dog and Honora. We met up on Sunday morning for a trash the dress shoot! The weather would have put most folk off getting back into their wedding outfits to go riding, but not Annie and Chris who wanted to capture some images of Annie galloping through the fields in her wedding dress!!
A couple of weeks later Annie and Chris called to see if I could come and take some images of them with Bennachie in the background. They had really wanted Bennachie to be in the wedding pictures, however, because of the rain on their wedding day at Pittodrie House Hotel it wasn’t possible. So, there we were hiking up Bennachie in the wedding best getting really strange looks from other hikers all dressed in their Gore-Tex gear!!
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Grand Central Hotel, Hindu Ceremony
Shweta and Noel had the Hindu part of their wedding ceremony at the Grand Central Hotel in Glasgow, followed by a photo shoot at the Botanical Gardens in Glasgow.
The Autumn colours in the trees and Shweta’s traditional dress made for vibrant pictures.
After a short break the evening reception started followed by the much anticipated dancing!!
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