Rachael & Adam’s Humanist Wedding at Glen Clova Kirk

It’s exactly three months since I conducted my last wedding, which was this one for Adam & Rachael in the wilds of Glen Clova, way up in the braes of Angus.

Glen Clova Kirk is still a working chapel so I’m very grateful that the minister kindly allowed us to have a humanist ceremony.

Rachael & Adam had been at the wedding of John and Andrew at Carlowrie Castle in November of last year and they got in touch with me the very next day about their plans.

John & Andrew love flying so much they even brought their own drinks trolley!

They clearly liked the idea of creating a ceremony that was very much their own and they totally embraced the idea of involving their guests.

They wrote a great script very quickly and we were all looking forward to a big, joyous participatory celebration of their love.

Then Coronavirus happened, and everything had to change.

Obviously they weren’t able to go with their original intention of involving their friends, so Rachael and Adam decided to focus on the essentials.

It became a very intimate but very powerful expression of love.

Rachael started the ceremony by sharing their thoughts on the meaning of marriage and after a moment for quiet reflection, they spoke the vows they had written for each other and kept secret until the day.

As Adam wrote, looking back, ‘Our plans for the day were changed to include a shortened ceremony attended by our immediate families, the bridal party, the groomsmen and a couple of trusty four-legged friends who were not on the original guest list at all. The ceremony didn’t feature the readings we’d planned but the vows survived and were even more emotional for it.

Thank you Tim for helping us make the ceremony so meaningful despite the last-minute changes. Overall it was more relaxed than it probably would have been with all our guests there, and more personal – it was special to be able to look at each person with us in the kirk when they were repeating the blessing at the end of the ceremony.

The celebration hooley with all our guests is definitely one to look forward to after the COVID-19 restrictions have been relaxed in Scotland.

All being well, Rachael and Adam will be able to do that in the spring of next year and I hope they’ll let me know how that goes in due course.

What I’ve learned from their ceremony is that even when our plans have to change out of all recognition, we can still celebrate the one thing that will get us through this difficult time: love.

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