Rachel Dore and Franco Casilli
28th October 2017
Venue | Rowallan Castle, Kilmarnock
Photography | Tandem Photo
“Franco is from Italy and I’m from Scotland, and we are singers on a cruise ship, so there was a lot of discussion over where we would choose to get married. After travelling every day of our careers, we finally decided where better than home. We wanted to bring all the Italian family over for a traditional Scottish wedding.
Our main theme was ‘Travel the World’ and we handmade most of our decorations. We had a globe that we asked our guests to sign where we met or a country that reminded them of us and we also made travel map boxes for our almond confetti chocolates (an Italian wedding tradition). Franco’s mum made an amazing red velvet, custard and lemon cake.
We translated our Humanist ceremony into Italian and created vintage-style wedding books for the Italian guests to follow the proceedings with.
One of Franco’s close friends sang our first dance acoustically, and three of the bridesmaids stood up during the speeches and performed too. We told everyone there was no way we would sing at our own wedding, but as a surprise we did a ‘first song’ after the first dance. It was a shock and there was lots of tears.
With Franco and I working away from home and planning the wedding from overseas, Liz Irving at Rowallan Castle was fantastic. She helped so much and made a tricky wedding planning situation a breeze.
At the end of the night, everyone was very intoxicated – especially the best man. He decided he wasn’t going to get on the bus back to Glasgow, but he’d walk to the main road and get an Uber (in the middle of nowhere). He got lost in the woods and went missing until the next morning when he was found with a destroyed kilt and a very embarrassed look on his face!”
Top tip: “Stop, breathe and remember what your wedding is truly about. It goes by so fast and sometimes we forget to take a second to stop and bask in the beauty of it all.”
Dress Diane Honeyman
Bridesmaids’ dresses TFNC
Groomswear Kilts4U
Rings James Brown & Partners
Celebrant Ken Eadie at Humanist Society Scotland
Cake Made by the groom’s mum
Flowers Flowers by Karen
Stationery Bespoke Wedding Stationery
Entertainment Sharron Griffiths – Harpist, Jonathan Graham Piper and Stewart Reid Entertainment
Transport SHM Travel
Hair Kimberley Dean and Danielle Cree
Makeup Jodie Davidson MUA and Samantha Connor
Nails Nicola Gall at Pretty Little Parlour
