Liam and Harly-Jane Campbell
12th October 2019
Venue | Errol Park, Perthshire
Photography | Fern Photography
“Liam and I met through a mutual friend just before I went off to Aberdeen to study nursing. Liam joined the police, but we both continued to travel and see each other for years before I returned to Fife and we were finally able to save up and find our own place together. We were together seven years before we got engaged (on Christmas Eve in our house).
We made a very rough guest list, then our thoughts turned to venues. We looked at over 35 of them, but found a lot of the impersonal packages at hotels weren’t for us. We wanted a venue that was different and Errol Park in Perthshire provided that. It gave us the freedom to make our wedding our own. You pay the money, hire the venue and the rest is up to you.
The main house is very big and grand, but the reception can be held in a barn which means it’s a great mix of both formal and rustic. Although it was October, we got very lucky with the weather: sunshine, 15 degrees and no wind – which showed off Errol Park perfectly.
My favourite detail was the colour palette we used throughout the wedding that was inspired by Liam’s tartan. In my head, it made the look of the day flow nicely. I had my bridesmaids in ivory and picked out colours in the tartan for flowers and a lace belt on their dresses. When I told people the bridesmaids were going to be in ivory, they were surprised as its not very traditional – but I loved it.
I got really into wedding planning and made lots of things, including my bridesmaids’ hair combs, flower girl hoops and chair-back wreaths. My vision was so specific I even sourced the lace used for my bridesmaid’s dresses. If I hadn’t been working full-time, I would have had a go at making much more. I thoroughly enjoyed it all.
I bought a relatively plain wedding dress from Eleganza Spoza. I absolutely loved its shape, but wanted to make it more me, so I designed a cape to go with it. Then, I took the dress and my sketches to Mirka Bridal Couture in Kirkcaldy who helped me make my dream dress a reality.
We chose to have a humanist ceremony as it allowed us to celebrate our love with our family and friends in a way which was unique to us. We had 120 join us for that part, with 40 more coming at night.
We were keen to ditch all the ‘boring bits’ from our wedding. Between the ceremony and meal, we put on a crisp and biscuit buffet for our guests and plied them with free drink, with music from Rusty’s Travelling Piano Bar (because, let’s face it most people are starving and canapés don’t cut it)! We’re told that went down very well.
Our caterer, A+D Catering, did something brilliant to entertain our guests through dinner. Just before the main course a person from each table had been chosen (secretly by us) to attend the kitchen area, don their chef’s hats and aprons and bring the roast back to the tables to carve up for the rest of their table.
A family friend owns a chain of chip shops and brought his vintage ice cream van along. We placed it inside the venue and later our evening food (wood-fired pizza from Wild Fire Pizza) was served from it.
My makeup artist Rae Mathieson was my favourite supplier. She kept everyone calm on the morning of the wedding and just totally got the style of the wedding. She really does know her stuff. In fact, she recommended a skincare plan that I still use to this day.”
Top tip: “We created our own wedding email used for everything and signed into this on both our phones and downloaded Google Calendar so we could easily see each other’s shifts and what appointments we had already made to work around these with greater ease.”
Celebrant Brian Hawkins, Humanist Society of Scotland
Brides’ dress Eleganza Sposa
Bride’s cape, bridesmaids’ dresses and mother of the bride outfit Mirka Bridal Couture
Flower girl dresses John Lewis
Groomswear Slanj Kilts
Catering A+D Catering
Buffet pizza Wild Fire Pizza
Cake Temptations Boutique Bakery
Flowers Myrtle and Bracken
Stationery Flutterbeeze
Venue decor Fifty Six Events
Wedding rings Finnies the Jeweller
Drinks reception music Rusty’s Travelling Piano Bar
Reception music The Big Papas
Hair Bespoke Bridal Hair by Robyn Donald
Makeup Rae Mathieson
Wedding film Ashleigh Middlemas Videography
