Family was at the heart of this laid-back wedding at Enterkine House Hotel

Ashley and Ben kept things laid-back at their Enterkine House Hotel Wedding, with lots of personalised touches and a packed dancefloor

Ashley Brown & Ben Stewart

8th July 2022

Venue | Enterkine House Hotel, Ayrshire
Photography | Faodail Photography

“We were together for nine years before Ben proposed while on a family holiday at Center Parcs. It caught me completely off guard!

I always wanted my family and friends to come and have the best time. Thankfully, Covid didn’t impact our plans and the wedding went ahead as normal.

We booked Enterkine House Hotel as it was close to home and we loved the new wedding space with its big glass doors and balcony area. The look of our wedding was quite simple, green and rustic. I didn’t want to go too over the top with things.

A lot of my inspiration came from Pinterest and talking to my friends and family, as well as from previous weddings I had been to (I had recently been a bridesmaid to one of my best friends, Abbie).

I love all the little nick-nacks at weddings so I did want to make sure I had some ideas that were different. I personalised our table names by naming them after pubs my partner and I loved, and tried to name each table with a pub that reminded me of those guests.

The night before, I stayed at Enterkine House with my mum, auntie and bridesmaids. We had a lovely dinner and watched Love Island to calm the nerves! Everyone kept saying how chilled out I was the next morning, but I loved every second of getting ready and spending time with all my favourite women.

I was most excited about walking down the aisle with my dad and this was the most important tradition for me to keep.

I walked down the aisle to ‘Caledonia’ by Dougie MacLean, as my husband and I both love this song. My favourite moment was right before the doors opened for me to walk down the aisle. My dad and I were very emotional.

Afterwards, our guests mingled on the balcony with drinks. We had Conor McCarry singing with his guitar too. It was amazing.

Everyone did an amazing job with the speeches. My dad, husband, sister and best man Andy all spoke. Andy was hilarious and Emma wrote an amazing poem. Everyone mingled and had a great time during the meal.
Our favours were homemade miniatures (with bottles and tags from Etsy) and everyone could help themselves to Macmillan Cancer pin badges in memory of my gran, who I lost eight months before the wedding.

The dancefloor was never empty – this was my goal. I had a father and daughter dance to ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ by Gerry and The Pacemakers. Our guests said that dancing at the reception was their favourite part of the day. I was surprised by how quickly the day went in. Our band, Rogues Gallery, were great.

My favourite images of the day are of our son, Harry. Rebecca and Callum at Faodail caught some amazing natural images of him. My favourite image of the whole day is the one of me and Harry in my room whilst I was getting ready. I loved all of the getting ready photographs.

The only thing I’d change? I wish I had gone to speak to Ben on the morning of the wedding to calm his nerves. I’d have given him a big cuddle and told him to relax and enjoy the day!”

Top tip: “Try not to get stressed,” advises Ashley. “You do this (hopefully) once in your life so just try to enjoy every second of the process. Everything always comes together on the day, and to be honest, you don’t notice all of the small things!”