Weddings at Lennoxlove House – Catriona and Steven Cairns

Anyone considering being married in Scotland is spoilt for choice when it comes to historic Scottish buildings to use as a Wedding Venue.  For their wedding, Catriona and Steven chose the stunningly beautiful Lennoxlove House in Haddington, East Lothian, home to the Duke of Hamilton.  As a 5 star wedding venue, this is one of Scotland’s finest.  Just a few weeks before, the Duke of Hamilton himself was married there.  His wedding was probably the second most famous Scottish Society Wedding to take place this summer, beaten only by Zara Phillips and Mike Tindall’s wedding in Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh.

Lennoxlove House is steeped in history – built in the 14th century and renovated several times over the last few centuries.  Indeed, Lennoxlove House must be famous throughout Europe as the German X Factor TV production team recently chose it for  the contestants’ “boot camp” in June!

However, before we got there, Catriona asked us to meet her at her parents house to take some bridal portraits in their extensive gardens. It had been raining heavily in the days leading up to the wedding but that did not faze Catriona – off she marched in her wellies to the bottom of the garden in all her wedding finery!  As you can see from the wedding photographs below, the bride and the gardens were beautiful with loads of bluebells still in bloom and loads of cosy wee nooks and crannies for plenty of photo opportunities.  It was still a little slippery under foot as Alan can confirm having fallen on his behind at the same location for the pre-wedding shoot a few weeks earlier!

Catriona and Steven put a huge amount of thought into their wedding with many unusual additions to the normal everyday Scottish wedding:  an owl delivered their rings to the alter in the middle of the ceremony; a fantastic old biplane carried out an aerobatic display; they had a really funky wedding cake and table decorations; they even had surprise singing waiters (more later).  The whole setting and the hospitality offered by the Lennoxlove staff was second to none.

As is typical with the Scottish weather, we weren’t sure if the rain would hold off to allow the Wedding Ceremony to take place in the gardens – right up until the last minute the staff were prepared for every eventuality. Luckily enough Catriona and Steven got their wish to have the Wedding Ceremony outside in the beautiful Lennoxlove House gardens.

The entertainment was also a little different! I’ve never seen a more fierce “address to the Haggis!” and there were three operatic Tenors, who had cunningly been disguised as waiters, who burst into song when coffee was served. What a really funny moment. The guests’ faces were a picture. The magnificent gourmet dinner was followed by a Ceilidh and a Disco where dancing went on into the early hours.

What a great privilege to be involved in a truly magical wedding in terrific surroundings with some really lovely people.