Me & My Wedding: A Special Day In Scotland

The Love Story

Mikkel and I initially met at university at St. Andrews but never got together. Many years later we reconnected in Oslo – where he was living when I was in London – but still nothing happened. We said our goodbyes and then Covid happened, so we ended up becoming pen pals for a year. By that time, I’d moved to New York to become a gemmologist and because he'd lived in New York before, he virtually held my hand through a lot of it. On my way home, we met up in Rome – the first time we’d seen each other in three years. It was the best weekend and the rest is history. 

The Proposal & The Ring

Mikkel moved to London the following year and after being together for just shy of two, he proposed. Our conversations about marriage had always been very hypothetical – suffice it to say he played me at my own game. A friend of his, Philip, came to Whitelaw to commission a ring – he said he was planning to propose and wanted a placeholder before he and his girlfriend came back to design another ring together. I'd never met him before but we spoke on the phone, texted back and forth – as I would with any client. He came to pick it up and that weekend, Mikkel proposed to me. 

It was September 2023, and Mikkel and I hadn’t seen each other in a while, so I’d come up with this idea of having a ‘date competition’ – I took the Saturday and he took the Sunday. On Sunday, we drove to the Cotswolds and, on the way, we stopped for a coffee. He insisted on going for a walk and when he started fumbling around in his pocket, I realised what was happening. He got down on one knee and said, “I have three pieces of bad news. One is I won the date competition. Two is I've blown the budget and three is Philip's not getting engaged.” Then he pulled out the ring I’d designed. It was very clever. Later on, I designed the Whitelaw Arran ring, which is now my official engagement ring, although I still wear the other one every day. 

The First Ceremony

We wanted to do something Norwegian and then something Scottish, so we held the first wedding ceremony in Oslo in May 2024 just for friends and family. We huddled around in a circle at our friend's gallery and then went to this restaurant called Grotto. The second event in Scotland was on a much bigger scale. 

The Venue

I'd been to Braemar, this perfect Highlands town a couple of times. I had to do something for work at The Fife Arms and when my dad picked me up afterwards, he said I had to come and see this place he’d found. Mar Lodge Estate is just magical. It’s a National Trust property and they’ve done such a good job looking after it. It even has a Victorian ballroom that Queen Victoria once danced in. I also loved that the outside looks like a Norwegian cabin. 

The only thing to note is it’s a dry hire venue, so you have to bring most things in yourself. We were very lucky to have some amazing wedding planners from Timeless White helping us and a really great co-ordinator from the venue. Personally, I think the best weddings are the ones that feel like the couple.

The Dress

It’s probably quite ironic that I didn’t make a bespoke dress. But really, finding my dress was an easy process. I limited myself to three shops and also signed up to a load of trunk shows. My maid of honour and I ended up going to a trunk show at The Fall Bride. We walked in and saw this girl in this Floure Studio dress and my jaw hit the floor. Deep down I knew I didn’t need to try on any other dresses – I did just for fun, but I knew it was the one. I even had a full day of trying on dresses with my mum and my sisters knowing I’d already found it. So actually, lots of people didn’t see me in it until the day of the wedding. 

I did have a bespoke veil because I wanted something quite specific: 90s in style with a satin trim. And I wore my great-grandmother's gloves. They were about a hundred years old, so very fragile. I had to have all the buttons replaced and there were a few scuffs and tears to repair, but it was amazing to see the whole look come together. My shoes were Manolo Blahnik and I also went a bit nuts designing lots of new pieces for my jewellery collection, so I had all the bridesmaids, my mum, sisters and in-laws wear the jewellery. I also knew I wanted a second look and loved that my other dress – from The New Arrivals – was quite sheer and covered in sequins. I also swapped my Manolos for some trusty Reformation heels that I could honestly run a mile in. A good tip – wear in your shoes before the big day; you’ll be so glad you did.

The Bridal Party

Mikkel decided to wear trews over a kilt. Our closest family tartan is the Cameron tartan but I don't really like when people are in matching tartans. So, we went to Stewart Christie in Edinburgh to choose his favourite version and have some trousers made in that. As a surprise, I also had a two-piece made out of the same fabric for our second-day event. He also had a Drake’s tux blazer. I wanted each of my bridesmaids to feel their best, so I let them choose their own dress. My only request was that they were floor length and worked with the colour palette. Our flower girl’s dress came from La Coqueta.

The Hair & Make-Up

Hair and make-up started at 5am. It was a lot but everyone looked so good. I brought in Wedding Day MUA and Leanna Gabriel – I’d used them before for work projects, so I knew they’d be amazing. I’d also done a couple of make-up trials before the big day, which I’d recommend to anyone.

The Flowers

I loved that our florist Verbena used lots of local flowers – the hydrangeas looked unreal. The tulip installation in the church also looked amazing – but be warned, once you try to move tulips they don’t behave! The colour scheme was very much linked to the tartan we’d chosen, so lots of reds, greens and a little bit of blue. It was the same in the stationery, which came from Studio Boz.

The Ceremony

The ceremony started at 2pm, which left time for Mikkel and I to go for a walk in the morning, which is when we swapped presents. Then it was time to get ready and go. We borrowed The Fife Arms Range Rovers to take the girls, my mum and other family members to the church and then dad and I drove in his E-Type Jaguar. When we arrived, there were lots of locals milling around because this is the church the royals use when they stay at Balmoral. I think they were disappointed to see I wasn’t one of them! 

I really wanted the whole weekend to feel like a 90s rom-com. I walked down the aisle to ‘She’ by Elvis Costello – very Notting Hill – and the readings were all monologues from different rom-coms. We sang Frank Sinatra’s ‘Fly Me To The Moon’ as the hymn as a nod to my grandparents who couldn’t make it. After the ceremony, we went back to the venue, where a surprise pipe band piped us into dinner after we had drinks outside. 

The Photographer & Videographer

While everyone enjoyed drinks and canapés, Mikkel and I took photos with our photographer Daniel Knight Harris. He was brilliant. I wanted someone who could use both digital and film, and create something that felt soft and romantic. I actually wish I'd done more posed photographs but I'd asked for candids. It was so cold, so I really limited the time we were out there! We also hired a videographer – Louis Bryant, who was excellent – and a content creation team from Content For Brides.

The Food & Drink

Our caterers, Ballintaggart were brilliant. The food started with perello olives, venison charcuterie and sourdough with whipped butter on the table, before we served a chicory, pear, candied walnut and burrata salad to start. Then, we had venison and fries with a pea puree for the main. For dessert, we served cocktails like espresso martinis from Black Lines and my sister made our wedding cake. Later, we had a midnight feast of sausage rolls and mac and cheese.

The Entertainment

We had to do a room flip after dinner, so we went through to a different area for cocktails. There, a pianist played lots of 90s tunes. We did the first dance to Ronan Keating’s ‘When You Say Nothing At All’. Then, the MCs started a conga line back into the ballroom. That’s when I did my outfit change. Our band was The Soul Establishment. We attempted some reeling – we were supposed to do three songs – but we only ended up doing one and cancelling the rest. Carriages were at 1am but so many people missed the bus back into town, so we had a lot of stragglers that had to be picked up!

The Day Before & After

The Fife Arms has this little pub across the road from the hotel, which we took over the night before for some casual drinks. Everyone turned up in their Barbour jackets and jeans and it was very casual. Then everyone who was staying at the venue went back for dinner and we had this Moroccan feast with our family and friends. We all had a bit of an early night.

I wanted the next day to be just as big as the first day. It was a bit of a lock-in that got out of hand! It started off with a dip in the river and then everyone arrived at the party at 1pm. The theme was ‘Scottish Alpine Disco’ and I wanted it to look like a Slim Aarons photograph. There were lots of bloody Marys and we had a hog roast and a Norwegian-style wedding cake. We also hired a DJ from Compact Disco Defender. He drove Mikkel and I into the party and the vibes just went from 5%-100% in seconds. The party went on until about 7pm but anyone staying at the venue lingered on.

Advice For Other Couples

It’s maybe counterintuitive to lots of the advice you’ll hear but I really think the devil's in the details. People remember the small things and the more a wedding feels like you, the more unique, fun and interesting it is. 

For example, we made sure to add in some Norwegian and Scottish traditions, like drinking whisky from the quaich during the ceremony for our first toast as husband and wife. On the Norwegian side, all the women lined up to kiss Mikkel on the cheek when I went to the bathroom and vice versa when he went. Also, when people stomped their feet under the table, we had to get under it and kiss, and when they banged their hands on the table, we stood on chairs and kissed.

Finally, make sure you have a real to-do list that you can go over and be careful – a wedding is such a big expense and there’s so much that goes into it, so there’s no point just copy and pasting another person's event. 

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Photographer credit: Daniel Knight Harris