Edinburgh Wedding | Ruth + Mark | Edinburgh Wedding Photographer
Edinburgh Wedding | Ruth + Mark | Scottish Bride | Edinburgh Wedding Photographer | Scotland Wedding
Edinburgh Weddings are some of my favorite! The architecture in this city is like no other. But truly, my favorite part of this wedding day is that Ruth and Mark are some of our best friends in Scotland and we were honored that they wanted Ross and I to capture their wedding day! Ruth and I actually were introduced by a mutual friend on Instagram telling us to meet at Cairngorm for coffee simply because he “thought we would get along well.” Well, he was completely right, because now she is one of my best friends here in Scotland!
Ruth started her wedding day at The Place Hotel with a morning of drinking mimosas and having a stunning view of the rooftops of Edinburgh. Mark spent his morning with his groomsmen at his home overlooking The Fourth Bridge in South Queensferry. His guys were doing cartwheels in kilts (good thing Ross was there to capture that craziness in person, because of course I couldn’t post all of those) and drinking coffee from The Manna House, their favorite local cafe. Both Ruth and Mark are such laid back individuals and both just wanted relaxing mornings with their best friends. Those are my favorite kind of mornings.
The Place Hotel is right next door to their ceremony location at P’s & G’s Church, so she was able to easily walk down the street and straight down the aisle for her ceremony. Ruth had the entire sanctuary of P’s & G’s transformed into a whimsical space full of nature and the outdoors. I even spent a day walking along the beaches of Scotland collecting sea glass to use as decor with Ruth. If you are looking for endless beautiful sea glass, the shores of the Dalmeny Estate have a lot that get washed up along the shore. In the end, they were able to gather enough blue and green sea glass to hang on all of the branches that they foraged from a local estate. After their ceremony, everyone caravanned down to the cobblestoned waterway of Quay Commons, in Leith, for an afternoon cocktail garden party in the sun! We then strolled through Custom Lane for their bridal portraits. They played a bit a ping pong in front of Williams and Johnson and just relaxed for a while, just the two of them, before greeting a couple hundred of their closest friends and family back at P’s & G’s for a night of Scottish wedding traditions and wedding party!
The guests (just a few, 400ish of them) were all greeted with a custom drink and handmade wedding favours, a bar of soap from the Isle of Skye company, Skye Soap. There were dances, speeches, a live band the whole evening and some solid ceilidh dancing! It was just the perfect evening and there is nothing better than walking away from a wedding and not wanting it to end. I’m so happy to have celebrated this wedding day with Ruth and Mark. With every unique wedding I capture, I’m left with memories that I’ll cherish forever and I couldn’t be more grateful for beautiful wedding days like this one.
Just in case you wanted to see Ross and I in action, these above photos show us in our happy place, dancing alongside everyone while capturing the fun happening all the way until the final dance, which is my favorite one! I truly love my job and celebrating the couples I’m documenting!
The images below are from the day-after shoot! We started at Fortitude Coffee and had flat whites before we headed off to roam the streets of the city where these two fell in love.
Edinburgh Wedding Photographer - Melody Joy Co. | Edinburgh Wedding Venues - Ps & Gs Church (ceremony + reception), Cafe Tartine (starter), Papillion (main) + Quay Commons (dessert) | Edinburgh Celebrant - Rev. Michael Mair | Edinburgh Wedding Videographer - Sandy Butler Videography | Edinburgh Wedding Dress - House of Mooshki (bespoke) at Edinburgh Bridal Boutique - Pretty Woman | Jewellery + accessories - Róis Scottish Sea Glass Designs | Bridesmaid outfits - Coast | Scotland Groomswear and kilts - The Kilt Store, Edinburgh | Edinburgh Wedding Florist - Narcissus | Edinburgh Wedding Band Entertainment - Corra | Edinburgh Bridal Make-up - Alicia Avenzzano | Custom Scottish Wedding Favours - Isle of Skye Soap Co. | Edinburgh Set design - Big House Productions
Wedding Dress Designer | Carolyn Baxter | Edinburgh, Scotland
Wedding Dress Designer | Carolyn Baxter | Edinburgh, Scotland | Edinburgh Wedding Photographer
Since I’ve been here in Edinburgh for half of the year for the last few years, until I start living here full time soon, I am always making new friends in the wedding industry! The reason I love genuinely getting to know individuals in the Scotland wedding world, is because when I know who they are as a person, I can confidently refer them to all of my future Edinburgh or Scotland brides here. You can only see suppliers work online, but when you get to know wedding suppliers in person, you will be able to refer them with more confidence and match them to future brides that share the same passions and personalities as them. For example, I’ve been said to be more soft spoken, quirky and silly in person than anticipated. Many say my personality is different than what they expected from my images (in a good way it seems!) when you know me in person, and I think that it’s so important to meet people face to face and have that personality connection, as well as loving their beautiful work online. So if you can meet local suppliers in your community, then I would highly encourage you to spend time with them, not only for shoots (which is a great way to help each other and create beautiful work for fun!), but grab coffee, keep up with them online, be genuinely invested in their life behind the scenes and not just in repeated comments for others to see.
Carolyn Baxter is a dress designer, based in the heart of Scotland. She not only designs, but hand sews all of her gowns in her Edinburgh studio. Carolyn not only designs wedding dresses, but also bridesmaid dresses and event gowns! Her work amazes me because it’s so custom. I love the creativity and admire the craftsmanship that goes into the process of making all of her own gowns. Each dress has it’s own unique details and gives the person wearing it endless confidence. Carolyn’s gowns are a combination of femininity and elegance, while still having an edge to them. If you’re searching for a place to have a locally designed wedding dress from Scotland for your wedding or elopement, you should definitely reach out to set up an appointment to visit Carolyn’s Baxter’s boutique in Edinburgh.
For this editorial shoot, I captured the “Julianna” and “Glimmer” gowns. We wandered the streets of Edinburgh and the harsh Scottish winds really showed all of the texture and movement of these beautiful dresses very well. These gowns are listed under her Event Dresses page on her website, but this shoot is a prime example of how any dress can be styled for your wedding day. You don’t have to just look in the bridal section for your wedding dress. I’ve even seen brides wear dresses meant for bridesmaids and they looks stunning! There are no rules when looking for your wedding dress, if you like a dress, whether it’s labeled for events, prom, balls or bridesmaids, if you want to wear it as your wedding dress, you do it proudly and I promise no one will even tell it’s purposed intention because the only definition of a wedding dress is the dress you end up wearing on the day you get married to your best friend… and that will always be your wedding dress.
Dress Designer - Carolyn Baxter | Makeup - Roo Bell | Models - Sofia + Alishba |
Edinburgh Wedding Photographer - Melody Joy Co.