I said in my last post that I was about to conduct a wedding on a beach – well this is it! Sometimes you get lucky with the weather in Scotland, and John and Wendy certainly did.

Most of their friends had come up from England, and they’d never been to a Humanist wedding before.

Although I was pleased to meet the guy in the kilt on the right hand side of this picture again  – it’s William, whose wedding to Zoe I’d had the pleasure of celebrating back in 2009.

 We were really lucky with the weather – as we came down to the beach, there was a haar rolling in from the Firth of Forth and the island of Fidra completely vanished at one point.

It was a lovely ceremony. One of the things that made it unique was that Wendy & John decided to give their guests two envelopes that they weren’t to open before they got to the beach. Envelope A contained the lyrics to my favourite Proclaimers song, ‘500 Miles’ and although they were all Sassenachs, they sang with lusty enthusiasm!

Another thing was the desk where we signed the Marriage Schedule – there wasn’t one, and although we could probably have used a rock, Danny stepped forward and lent us his back for the occasion, and Hazel and Arlene, John and Wendy’s mums were the witnesses.

Wendy and John had prepared for the day in every possible way. They even had an alternative ending for the ceremony in case the weather had turned nasty – as they said, “Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain”.

I’m glad we didn’t need to use it, but I’m sure we would all have been every bit as happy on the day!

My thanks to Alan, Wendy’s dad, for the photos – wonderfully informal and every one a winner.