Walking in a Floral Wonderland

With touches of duck egg blue and rose gold, the stunning ballroom at Meldrum House Hotel was transformed into a floral wonderland for Rachel Anne Garden and Thomas Weir’s magical day…

With touches of duck egg blue and rose gold, the stunning ballroom at Meldrum House Hotel was transformed into a floral wonderland for Rachel Anne Garden and Thomas Weir’s magical day…

Tommy proposed to me on the beach with a gorgeous sapphire engagement ring in July 2019 and we planned to tie the knot in November 2020. However, due to restrictions, we moved the date to May 2021 so we could have more of our family and friends join us in celebrating our big day - that was extremely important to us.

Our first priority was finding a place where all our friends and relatives could stay. It also had to be picturesque for our photographs and, as we both really love going out for a special meal, somewhere with a great menu and chef. Finally, we wanted a venue with a room large enough for a ceilidh.

Meldrum House ticked all those boxes for us. The ballroom is big and bright with beautiful windows looking onto the green, so it didn’t need too much in the way of decoration. We just wanted to amp up the nature theme and bring the outside in, and fully entrusted this task to our florist Liesbeth who worked her magic with our duck egg and rose gold theme. She did an amazing job!

As for dress shopping, I loved the entire experience. I thought I knew exactly what I wanted but when I tried it on, I knew it wasn’t The One for me. I then arranged a day with my bridesmaids and headed for Ivory Grace – it always has the most beautiful dresses in the window and funnily enough the dress I chose was the one in the window!

I added a veil, which was a no-brainer to me, and a pearl and diamond necklace that I got from Tommy for my 30th, as well as a pearl bracelet and earrings – also a gift from Tommy. I wore my mum's engagement ring for something old. My shoes were brand new Jimmy Choos that I’d tried on a whim and fallen in love with. For my something blue I had a hair comb in duck egg and pearl.

Tommy’s shopping experience went flawlessly too. We knew we wanted all the men in kilts and picked a tartan that matched the bridesmaid dresses. Georgian Kilt Hire were very helpful in fitting us in and managing the groomsmen who were outside of Aberdeen.

The wedding morning was very relaxed and flew by. We had a humanist ceremony, based on a story of us which we wrote on what should have been our original wedding day. Sharon used the pieces to create a perfect ceremony that truly reflected us.

Our harpist played us out and we joined our guests for canapés and drinks. The wedding was the first time for a long time all our family and friends had been in the same room. It made our hearts swell with joy to have them all there to celebrate with us.

The meal was amazing! We did speeches before the dinner so everyone could relax and enjoy the food without interruption. Then we treated our guests to a quiz made by Tommy’s family (it was about us and it was so much fun hearing all the various answers to the questions!) and a carefully curated playlist of good music.

Overall, our wedding truly was the most amazing day. It was so special to be back with our friends and family, and to celebrate after a really difficult year. Everyone was so supportive of us throughout the pandemic and we felt very lucky to have had all that help, then enjoy having our loved ones with us on the most special day.

We had a mini moon the week after the wedding, spending a week at Gleneagles, which was very special. We finally had our honeymoon (a safari in Kenya) in October 2022, which was sensational!