Connie & Jamie's windy, nautical, owl-themed Scottish isle shindig
Posted by Offbeat Intern · Real offbeat weddings

The Offbeat Bride: Connie, Charity Worker

Her Offbeat Partner: Jamie, Admin Worker

Location & date of wedding: Isle of Seil, Argyll, Scotland, UK — 27th June 2009 (and OBT member "Connikins")

What made our wedding offbeat: Connie's from a wee island in the Inner Hebrides, where her family has a beautiful farm right by the sea. So it was a no brainer where we would have the wedding. There's a monument on a small peninsula, which her Dad and some friends erected in the early '80s, that provided the perfect focal point. It was wonderful to be in such beautiful surroundings — the real stars of the wedding were the views!

The tables were named after breeds of & interesting facts about owls.

As a couple we are simplistic in our needs and wants and were determined that our wedding would be a reflection of us rather than how much money we had, or what anyone else thought our day should be. Furthermore, while we respect religion as a choice for others, we did not want a religious ceremony and opted for a Humanist service. Scotland is one of only six countries in the world where these are currently legal. We kept the service to the absolute minimum, only immediate family and a party later!

The overall cost of the wedding was about £4,000 ($6,700). Connie's sister made the beautiful cake, our invites were a gift and the venue of course free! Instead of wedding cars we had Connie's Dad's boat — it was a struggle to get into, but paid off in the end!

Our biggest challenge: There were two big challenges for us…

We did absolutely everything ourselves from decorating to compiling the playlists, to hand knitting the favours. This turned out to be more time consuming than we'd thought!

The bridesmaids.

When the bride arrived at the pier to get into her boat it was discovered that someone had miscalculated the tides and there was a 5ft gap between the bottom step and the side of the boat. She ended up having to descend a piece of scaffolding we found to get in! Luckily she boarded safely but spent the trip to the wedding picking bits of seaweed out of her dress!

My favorite moment: Our favourite moment was definitely the boat trip back to the pier, immediately ater the service. It was one of the very few moments we grabbed together to ourselves. Our "crew" had fitted out the cabin with some lovely cushions and put a "just married" sign on the side. We drank champagne while passing boats blew their horns at us! The weather was perfect and everything was so calm that it was like another world!

The wedding ceremony.

My advice for other offbeat brides: Make sure you set aside some non-wedding time with your other half in the run up. It can get a bit mad and you need to remember why you're doing it in the first place!

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?:

• Dresses – Vivien of Holloway
• Beatles Suits – Beatwear

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn!: