Melissa & Sean’s Edinburgh Castle Wedding

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1443631663 43074bd0da alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)
The Offbeat Bride: Melissa – Executive Director, but you may remember her from being profiled previously on OffbeatBride.com in “Offbeat Military Weddings.”

Her Offbeat Partner: Sean – Soldier

Location & Date of wedding: Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh Scotland — Sept 11, 2007

What made our wedding offbeat:

Look closely and you can see the groom's skean dubh.
Look closely and you can see the groom's "skean dbuh."
Blue medieval wedding dress custom made, all the guys in uniforms, the hubby in his military dress uniform (from a Canadian Highland regiment), a Mountie in full red serge in Scotland, totally tripped out the tourists, and mismatched bridesmaids.

Lots of Scottish culture, hand-fasting, non-traditional readings, and much, much single malt scotch. And all of this taking place in a medieval castle built on top of an inactive volcano.

Full military honour guard with WWII rifles at our unit armoury for our reception back home, cut the cake with a sword, and toasted with a full bottle of Glenlivet 15 year old, after just having gotten back from the distillery in Speyside.

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Typical Canadian…
Typical Canadian…
Our biggest challenge: Booking everything in Scotland from Canada. All done by e-mail, which worked out amazingly well, except for when the hairdresser who didn't bother to show up, so we walked to a salon who was able to take us in at the last minute.

My favorite moment: Standing on the battlements of the castle in an amazing dress with my stunning new husband, sitting on a canon and looking down the mountain over the entirety of the city of Edinburgh.

My advice for other offbeat brides: Whatever you do, make sure it MEANS something to you. Bring in your own culture, traditions, hobbies, loves, and make it really YOURS.

Enough talk — click the picture below to see the wedding porn and to find out what a skean dubh is:

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