Tag: wedding

The Byre at Inchyra -Nathalie and Cameron’s Big day

On By @humanistbrianIn Byre at InchyraLeave a comment

Never been here before! This was a long distance wedding and I didn’t get a chance to meet Nathalie and Cameron until the week before the wedding all the way from Australia. We had, however, talked many times on Facetime and swappped many, many emails. On the day it was a very international crowd of guests that joined us crammed into a very sweaty byre. But boy did we have a laugh because the story of how the two of them got together was hilarious involving goat racing (don’t ask) and boar hunting.

I think the reading by Nat’s sister-in-law, Amy, kind of sums up the day:

LOVE IS LIKE A BOTTLE OF GIN

It makes you blind, it does you in

it makes you think you’re pretty tough it makes you prone to crime and sin its makes you say things off the cuff its very small and made of glass

and grossly over-advertised it turns a genius into an ass

and makes a fool think he is wise it could make you regret your birth or turn cartwheels in your best suit

it costs a lot more than its worth and yet there is no substitute they keep it on a higher shelf the older and more pure it grows it has no colour in itself

but can make you see rainbows you can find it at the bowery

or you can find it at Elaines

it makes your words more flowery

it makes the sun shine, makes it rain you just get what they put in

and they never put in enough Love is like a bottle of gin

but a bottle of gin is not like love

 

My First Wedding

On By @humanistbrianIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

The training to become an authorized celebrant is extensive and covers not only the legal aspects and obligations of the role but also how to design the ceremony and the variety of rituals, vows, pledges that other, more experienced Celebrants have used in the five years we have been delivering legal weddings. I still vividly remember the stories of the outdoor weddings in howling gales and one in six inches of snow. But, on the day of my first wedding and a Registered Celebrant, it was the discussion about children at weddings that came back to me most powerfully.

John and Zoe Scally, as they now are, were to be married in the Clubhouse of the Prestonfield Golf Course on the 1st May 2010. I met John and Zoe and their three year-old son Zac and worked with them to design the ceremony they wanted on their special day. Being my first wedding I thought it wise to be as prepared as possible so I visited the Prestonfield Golf Club and it was amazing, with panoramic views over Arthur’s Seat and the eighteenth green sitting beneath. Being midweek during February the clubhouse was, of course, very quiet.

The day arrived and I got to the venue early but not before half of the guests who were already enjoying themselves at the bar, arranging tables, and, as far as I could ascertain, running a crèche. As promised they had closed the partition to separate the bar but behind that partition were, what sounded like, a hundred golfers all shouting at the top of their voices over a television showing the Hearts game. We got ourselves organised, I managed to calm John down, eventually tracked down the two of their elder children who were going to do the readings and found the one who was bearing the rings. Zoe entered and the place went wild, everyone on their feet, cameras flashing and then Hearts scored in the bar next door. I gestured wildly to the bar staff who managed to quieten things down, got some semblance of order in my half of the clubhouse and the ceremony started. Fortunately, in my other life, I am a management trainer and, in the early part of my career, I was voice coached by an actor so I know how to project my voice. I needed every ounce of that training, Cicero in the Forum would have been impressed.

We got the heart of the ceremony when the bride and groom make their declarations with many tears flowing and a few good laughs as well. Then came the crowning moment. As, for the first time as an authored Celebrant, I was making my first legal declaration, “As you have now both made a solemn and binding contract and by virtue of these declarations, made in my presence…” young Zac bolted forward from nowhere, grabbed his Mum’s wedding dress and shouted, at the top of his voice “Are you a Scally now?”