Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could get married where you had your first date?

That’s what Christine and Daniel did.

Their story began at the University of Edinburgh, where they were studying for their Masters, and they reached out to me because I’m the Honorary Humanist Chaplain. I love it when alumni do that, and it’s a real honour to be asked – but let’s go back to that first date!

Christine is American, but when she and Daniel met in a bar on the Cowgate, for some reason she decided to pretend she was Canadian… which didn’t fool his friend, Simon for one minute…

Their first date – almost eight years before their wedding – was at Howie’s Restaurant just below Calton Hill, and it went well. So well that when they graduated the following year, Christine packed up and headed off to the tiny country that Daniel calls home – Luxembourg – which nestles between Belgium, France and Germany.

Daniel couldn’t imagine how Christine’s family must have felt, given that they had never met him and thought their precious daughter (or as she likes to say: their favourite child) was only to be away for a year.

Within a few months, they both found jobs and Christine convinced the Luxembourgish government that she wasn’t just using Daniel for his EU citizenship to get a residence permit!

They went through a lot together – first jobs, first apartment, getting COVID multiple times during the pandemic, new jobs, buying an apartment and – to my mind the most challenging part of all – Christine learning Luxembourgish…

After I told their story, Daniel’s nephew Ben came up to join us with the rings

Christine and Daniel made their vows in a Q&A way, so (among other things) I asked her, “do you promise to respect Daniel as his own person, to realise that your interests, desires and needs are no less important than his own, and to pretend to care about football podcasts and electric unicycles as much as he does?”

While Daniel promised “to respect Christine as her own person, to realise that her interests, desires and needs are no less important than his own; to always go to bookshops with her and never stop her from buying more books – even when she already has a pile of unread books at home?”

As they exchanged rings, I read these words from Christine’s favourite author, Jane Austen. “I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.” 

I loved the twist they brought to their handfasting!

Not only did they choose to use the Edinburgh tartan, because this was the city that brought them together and where the next chapter of their lives would begin, but they also invited their mothers, Terri and Laure, to tie the knot.

Laure and Terri then recited a traditional Irish blessing, alternating between Luxembourgish and English. 

It’s the one that starts, “May the road rise to meet you…”

Soll de Wee an Är gewënschte Richtung goen

I was delighted to get this lovely card from Christine and Daniel just in time for Christmas.

“Working with you and writing our own ceremony made it an incredibly memorable experience and, in the end, it felt like a true reflection of who we were and our story.

While it was “our words”, your energy, openness and joy in delivering them brought the ceremony to life. Our friends and family are still talking about how lovely and special it was.”

It certainly was!

Sticky ticker tape makes a real change from confetti, but it just added to the feeling of “joie de vivre” – or “Freed um Liewen” as they say in Luxembourg!

It was a real pleasure for me to conduct a wedding for two alumni of my own Alma Mater, and to celebrate, in two languages, the things that unite rather than divide us, so thank you so much, Christine and Daniel!

The joy your wedding brought to your family and friends is so easy to see in these photos shot by Pete for London-based Liam & Bee so my thanks also go to him for capturing the mood of the day so perfectly!