Should we risk an outdoor wedding?

For many couples, an outdoor ceremony is their preferred option and it often adds a nicely relaxed air to the proceedings. If you have a particular affinity with the natural world, it might be really important to you to get married outdoors, with the sights and sounds of nature around you.

If you're in the grounds of a hotel, the venue may arrange to have seating and even a red carpet to create an aisle, but quite often the guests will simply stand in informal groups instead (perhaps with a few seats for elderly guests). An outdoor wedding always carries a risk though - what do you do if the weather is bad? You might be lucky and get a day like this at Shieldaig Lodge in Gairloch a few years ago:


We certainly needed the sunscreen that day and midge repellent comes in pretty handy in certain parts of Scotland (north and west mainly) and certain times of the year (summer months) too! Don't forget wasp swatting season either - some people are seriously freaked out by wasps!

The following wedding of Kelly and John at the Roman Camp Hotel in Callander was another lovely day and the sun sparkling off the water gave the whole wedding a magical quality.

(This wedding was also videoed by James at Strageworx Productions and if you follow this link, you can see a web version of Kelly and John's DVD: http://www.strangeworx.com/kellyandjohn/)

How do we set the room out?

It's a good idea to have some form of focal point in the room (or space if it's outdoors) and this could simply be in the form of a table with a flower arrangement on it such as the one above which is at Castle Campbell. By the way, on the subject of flowers, make sure that your florist removes any stamens with pollen! I recently got red pollen from a floral display all over my dress before a wedding and I had to keep the bride well away from it! 

Of course some venues afford a spectacular views that might be all you need for a focal point! This is the lovely view over the loch view from Kinlochard Village Hall for example:

How do we enter and how do we stand?

I often get asked questions about wedding etiquette and in particular, things like which side of her dad should the bride be on when they enter at the start of the ceremony? Just in case you're wondering too, it is traditional for the bride to take her dad's right arm, so that he walks down the aisle on the left, which is traditionally 'the bride's side'. Someone other than dad may of course be 'giving the bride away', such as in the case of Michelle above, whose Gran had the honour of escorting her on her wedding day. As you can see, in this case the bride decided to walk on her Gran's left rather than the right. 

You could of course decide to move completely away from tradition and walk in together as bride and groom! And by the way, I often refer to the 'giving away' tradition during the ceremony and say that in reality there isn't any giving away because the two of you have already given your hearts to each other. It's a nice way of saying that you have a relationship of equals and that there is no relinquishing of ownership on the part of the father of the bride - and indeed, no claiming of ownership by the groom! At the same time, I always like to make a big fuss of dads for their role on the big day!