Carly and Gordon’s Humanist Wedding at Carlowrie Castle

• August 17, 2018
• Humanist Weddings Scotland, Universal Humanism
• 2 Comments
• Tim Maguire

 

In these days when many people meet their life partner on a dating app, it’s lovely to be able to tell a story about a couple who first met in primary school, (even if Gordon thought that Carly was ‘quiet and shy’, and she just remembered him as ‘the wee guy with the curtains’).

 

They didn’t actually date back then, and it was only after a random meeting at the legendary Subway on Lothian Road in 2005 that their paths and lives entwined. Two years later they moved in together, one year after that, their beautiful baby boy Cole came into the world and delighted though they were, they knew they had to add the lovely Lucia to complete the clan. (Yes, Gordon did get a bit emosh at that point!)

 

 

 

As they said, ‘Lucia’s the funniest wee girl we’ve ever met and she never fails to make us laugh every day with her one liners and her diva attitude’ (yes, you guessed, she takes after her mother!)

 

 

 

Three years went by, during which Carly gave up on any hope of having her ‘big day’ but of course Gordon had other plans, and despite giving every appearance to the contrary, he was planning a special surprise.

 

 

 

On the morning of the engagement, Carly said that Gordon was being shifty. She didn’t realise why until they were standing next to a beautiful loch, and Gordon got down on one knee and asked her to be his wife. As she said, ‘it turns out that Gordon can be romantic when he wants to be!’

 

 

 

After a wonderful honeymoon, and a manic few weeks of getting back to normal life, Carly and Gordon sent me these great shots from the day taken by the award-winning photographer Raymond Keith, and these words, which express better than I can why I take a hardcore approach to weddings.

‘Wow – what a day we had! We cannot thank you enough for allowing us to have the ceremony that we dreamed of. It was amazing in every respect – we had tears of happiness and laughter, which every wedding ceremony should have.

 

When we first came to you and we heard how you bring everything together with homework we were a bit apprehensive.  

 

With both of us working full time with 2 kids we didn’t know if we would find the time to fit the homework in, however, we gave it our best shot.  Our homework made us realise all the reasons we fell in love with each other in the first place and it was lovely.

 

 

 

I had the fear when you then asked us to write the whole ceremony from the notes we had provided – the whole process seemed a bit daunting.  

 

Now I know and understand why you do things they way you do – our wedding was so personal to us and that’s how it should be. We put in our hard work, and it definitely paid off!

 

 

Its funny that the ceremony was the one part of our wedding which we were least looking forward to but looking back it was our favourite part and we can’t wait to get our video back so we can relive it all again.

 

 

 

I would not hesitate to recommend you to a friend should they marry.

 

Thank you again, Carly and Gordon.

 

 

As I said, Carly, your words really do sum this up. From being the part of your day that you least expected to enjoy, your ceremony became your favourite bit. Job done – and it was done by you, not me, and that makes me very proud! 

Thank you so much once again, and thanks of course to Raymond Keith for these lovely photos.