
21st March 2023 / Weddings
Signet Library Edinburgh Wedding Photography
Catching up post pandemic
I fell quite behind during the pandemic with blogging my work and so in an effort to catch up a little, I bring you this glorious day celebrating the marriage of Jen & Alex up in Edinburgh, during that magical time running up to Christmas. I sent Jen a few questions as it’s nice to include some words here from the couple. Jen has been very thorough, so I need to stop writing now and hand you over to hear it from them!
How they met
We were friends for years before we got together (finally!). We went to Edinburgh for the day on our first date to see the pandas at Edinburgh Zoo and visited the city numerous times over the years. Alex proposed on 23rd December 2017 in Edinburgh so that’s why we got married there, and on that date! Alex proposed with an acoustic version of a song playing called Afterglow which I then went on to walk down the aisle to, played on piano by one of our close friends.
The Signet Library Wedding Photography
We fell in love with The Signet Library as soon as we saw it – it’s just stunning. Once we saw it, I don’t think we could picture our wedding anywhere else. We always go to a pub across the road on Royal Mile each time we visit Edinburgh, so we knew we wanted part of our day in that area of the city. We are both huge fans of Christmas so The George for the reception was a no brainer when we saw all of the decorations there!
Wedding details and style
I went shopping with my mum for my wedding dress. I think everybody knew I’d go with sequins and beads – it’s what I was looking for from the start! But the main thing for me was to feel comfy – so many dresses were itchy or I’d trip over! With The George having such amazing Christmas decoration already we really didn’t need to do much work there! For the table centres, which we did ourselves, we used Alex’s late Grandads old books stacked simply with candles. They worked really well with the style of our venues as well as having sentimental meaning.
The Wedding Ceremony
We have many mutual friends, most of which took on one of the roles as best men (there were 12 of them!). One of the best men, Tom Burke, married us which was just absolutely amazing to have a friend prepare for marriage with us and perform our ceremony. It was his first wedding so hopefully equally special for him! As mentioned, another of our best men, Lee Healbury, played our music, which we couldn’t have imaged any other way and he is so incredibly talented. For readings we had another of the best men, David Clayton, and one each of our cousins, George Wilkinson and Allison Smith. George read a couple of Dr Seuss poems and the others picked their own readings which was a really nice surprise for us. We chose to write our own vows.
Wedding entertainment & first dance
We chose One Republic by Counting Stars for our wedding first dance because it was a song that we listened to a lot when we first got together, and we also saw the band live in Dublin years back. We actually had a ‘second first dance’ to follow up too which was Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield. This is our song for when we have a car full of people on a long drive and we knew it’d get the dancefloor going – which as you can see from the photos, it certainly did! We had a brass band, Brass Gumbo, during our welcome drinks reception and a DJ for the evening. Alex and I are based in Manchester and once saw a brass band playing funky Christmas songs on a train home from the Christmas markets one year. As a result, we wanted the exact same thing at our wedding!
Looking back on a happy day
Jen – I loved every moment of the ceremony and particularly enjoyed when Alex and I had a few moments to ourselves afterwards. Walking down Royal Mile with the castle up the road, everyone waving and my veil flying everywhere in the wind was just my absolute favourite moment. We had so much fun! The most overwhelming moment of the day for me was arriving back at The George on the red bus to see all of our friends and family gathered together for confetti – that really got me! Everybody looked so happy! My Grandma couldn’t make it up to Edinburgh but she had spent the past year collecting petals from her garden and drying them to make confetti so it was a really special moment for me.
Alex – Seeing Jen walk in for me, she looked so beautiful and both of us were unusually calm so I felt great to know that at that point the moment had arrived and it was nice to look around and see all our friends and family. I also loved when the music turned off at 1am and we were still singing our fourth rendition of Angels by Robbie Williams 15 minutes later.
Advice for couples planning their wedding
Jen – I wouldn’t change a thing – the feeling on that day was just incredible. My maid of honour, Roisin Whittle, gave me great advice which was to take as much in as possible and to keep looking around all day. It’s so easy to miss things or to keep your focus on one area so I made sure I looked around all day and really enjoyed seeing everyone having such a good time! I was super organised throughout the whole process so that on the day I could completely relax which was a good job because everything completely left my brain on the day but everyone around me knew what was going on!
Alex – Just remember the most important thing is that you end the day married, nothing else really matters. If you had to get married wearing jeans in the middle of a stormy field but you were still married then it would still be the best day of your life; but everything else certainly helps to make it more special.
Mike Plunkett – Wedding Photographer
We decided to book Mike because we’d seen his work for numerous friends weddings and met him on more than one occasion already. As well as the photography being amazing, natural and funny (which we love!) we just loved his presence on the days of their weddings. He dressed smart, was super friendly and blended into the day. It was a fantastic decision to choose him and he went the extra mile even attending the rehearsal the evening before and taking a few pictures there!
Some Wedding Supplier Love
Dress was ‘Lucille’ by Eliza Jane Howell bought from Ava Rose Hamilton
Suits were from Next
Cake by Mimi’s Bake House
Bridesmaids dresses from Monsoon
Stationary from Pressision & Entwhistle
Brass Band – Brass Gumbo
Transport – The Red Bus
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