Real Wedding – Cristen & Andrew Davidson – 19th July 2021

Cristen & Andrew’s wedding day was full of sunshine, haar and shots! This lovely couple finally got the day they deserved after postponing their wedding from 2020. They have kindly shared their whole wedding experience with us and their favourite moments of the day, including how they mainly used local suppliers from along the coast! What a lovely idea.

How did you guys meet? 

We met during high school at Waid Academy. So we have been a couple since we were young teens and have been lucky enough to have grown up alongside another since. The week before we got married we had just reached a milestone of being together for 10 years.

What first attracted you to Kinkell Byre and what made you decide it would be perfect for your special day? 

Kinkell Byre was local to us with only being a 20 minute drive away and we thought it would be lovely to get married somewhere close to home. We always knew that a hotel wedding wasn’t our style and wouldn’t be as personal.

What is there not to love about Kinkell Byre? It is full of character and original charm. It is surrounded by stunning views of the sea and sits between two golf courses. There is also an idyllic garden area which is a hidden gem as well as woodland. Overall Kinkell Byre has a wide range of scenery for you and your guests to enjoy. The Byre itself captivates you as soon as you walk in. What we really loved was the layout and the freedom to design our own unique and personalised space for our wedding. After having a visit to the venue with our parents and meeting Sam and Sandy we knew straight away that this was the venue that would allow us to have our dream wedding day. We also also knew our family and friends would fall in love with it too.

Sam, Sophie and Sandy at Kinkell Byre are beyond wonderful and we’re a pleasure to liaise with. They really are so passionate about their job and were always so quick at replying to any enquiries that we had. They went above and beyond to help throughout the planning process. When we sadly had to make the difficult decision to postpone our wedding they were amazing and did everything they could to allow us change our date as smoothly as possible. Sophie was at the Byre during our set up day and she coordinated all of our suppliers as well as offering any help to us she could. Sam also sent us the most lovely message the day before our wedding with last minute words of advice. We can’t thank the three of you enough for allowing us to have the most perfect and amazing day of our lives.

Tell us a bit about your wedding? What made you pick the things you did and what was most important to you both? 

We wanted our wedding day to be a reflection of us as a couple by incorporating all of the things that we love. We also wanted it to have a relaxed feel as well as being full of fun for everyone.

With having our wedding at Kinkell Byre we were able to transform the venue into our own which was very important to us. We required many suppliers to help create what we had visioned and planned in our heads. We were so lucky to have the most wonderful suppliers. We had already seen the standards of their work from previous weddings that they had been part of and that they together would make our dream day a reality.

In addition, It made it even more special to have some local businesses be part of our day. My own hairdresser Dana @ Studio One, done all of the bridal parties hair. Kerry @ Pretty You, did all of our makeup and I have known her for a long time with living in the same street. Our beautiful flowers were even grown in our home town by Cath who owns Blue Poppy Florist. Loren Brand Cakes baked the most delicious and beautiful wedding cake for us and we got exactly what we wanted. Loren had also made cakes previously for our families birthdays so it was lovely that she was able to do our wedding cake too. Graeme Mackay Videography who is from the East Neuk did an outstanding job of capturing all the special moments our day. Finally, Iain Whitelaw who kindly agreed to be our Humanist is another local who lives in the East Neuk. Iain conducted our ceremony and we adored how he focuses on making this as personal as possible allowing us to have the freedom to express our thoughts on marriage and what we love about one another.

My wedding dress was the one I had first seen online and I instantly feel in love with it and had to try it on. Amy King Bridal and Beauty was fabulous and managed to source it in to her shop for me. I had the most wonderful experience saying yes to the dress at her shop. I always knew I would like a dress with an undertone as I’ve never been one to wear white. So it was perfect for me.

Andrew and his groomsmen got their kilts from Kirk Wynd Highland House and we picked out the eternity tartan that complimented my dress and our colour scheme.

My bridesmaids wore multi-way dresses from Kates Dresses online. They adored them and were able to have the choice of a style that suited them. I wanted them to feel as comfortable as possible. The groomsmen also got their ties from there so the colours matched in perfectly.

Our Pinterest board completely came to life with industrial, boho and woodland inspired styles running throughout the Byre with a huge thanks to Gloam. Lauren and Jean knew exactly what our vision was and we couldn’t believe how well they transformed the Byre with all their props and styling expertise. All of the extra helping hands of the Gloam team also arranged our own personal belongings on the set up day and included these items in the final planning stages.

Stephen Leslie of i- Light was outstanding and knows exactly how to give the Byre the most enchanting feel with adding all of the lighting around the venue. You are given a choice of different lighting options which was also a bonus to be able to add your own vibe to Kinkell. He was also great at coordinating all of our suppliers on set up day and on our wedding day.

When it came to the floristry I am a lover of eucalyptus and pampas grass so we had to have them blooming in every room within the Byre. My choice of flowers also complimented the overall colour scheme.

We also needed to include Andrew’s second love in his life, golf. So we hired mini golf from Go2 Eventhire and also gave personalised golf balls to our guests as favours. We used gin bottles I had been collecting for some time as table centre pieces with golf flags in them. There was also little gin bottles as favours too. Our table names were local golf courses that Andrew plays on with a twist of adding a gin brand to the names. So we mixed golf and gin as an overall theme.

We luckily came across our day entertainment online which fitted our theme amazingly ‘Ginny and the Tonic’. Stefanie is such a beautiful singer and she made me cry when I heard her perform my walking down the aisle song, hence my slight delay in entering the ceremony room. They also performed post ceremony for our guests and us to enjoy while the canapés were being served.

Due to the ever changing restrictions we managed to hire Wildfire pizza at the very last minute to provide our evening food, who doesn’t love a pizza?  Especially to wash down all of those celebratory drinks consumed. They were super tasty and just what everyone needed towards the end of the day.

What did you both enjoy planning? 

Being the foodies that we are, we particularly loved planning our catering choices for the day. Lazy Sunday allowed us to completely design our menu ourselves from the canapés to the wedding feast so it included all of our favourites. We went to a tasting session where we were able to sample all of the delicious food we had picked and to see for ourselves how well presented their food was. We adored the quirkiness of how the canapés are served by them and their overall relaxed style to match the vibes we aimed for on our day.

Tell us about your day? 

Our day was “simply the best” to summarise  it a a few words.

It was everything we had wished for and more! We both couldn’t stop smiling with happiness. To be able to share our special day with all our families and closest friends together was just unreal, we felt so blessed.

The whole bridal party stayed at the Fairmont the night before the wedding. My bridesmaids had decorated the room with balloons and gave me a hamper of the most thoughtful gifts. My maid of honour had put the time and effort into making me a huge memory album filled with memories from when we first got engaged to right through the planning process. It was the perfect last evening as a Miss! Andrew stayed with his parents and his brothers the night before the wedding and they got ready for the wedding at his family home.

We were so lucky to have the most amazing weather on our wedding day. The whole morning the sky was filled with the haar from the sea and just before we were due to leave the Fairmont for Kinkell it lifted and the sun shone right until the end of the day. We managed to enjoy the most gorgeous sunset together while getting some evening snaps and when the haar appeared once again it was great for photo opportunities and Zoe @PhotosbyZoe took full advantage and captured it beautifully.

With Andrew being a golfer it was a must to get some pictures taken at the Swilken bridge on the Old Course. We felt like royalty as the golfers playing on the course all stopped to cheer and passers by waved to us in the Volkswagen camper van that we hired from View from a Slow lane that equally worked as our something blue. Doing this also gave us time together to chat about our mornings getting ready and how we felt post I Do’s which was really lovely to get that quality time.

Memory making is so important, We wanted to have many keepsakes to hold on to and cherish after our day. We had a photo guestbook and everyone had a ball using the instax cameras and picking from the funny collection of props we had brought. I also had frames which worked as a drop box for guests to place a signed heart into.

We had the most phenomenal band, ‘The White Doves’ who were great at entertaining us all in the evening. We listened to them performing a wide range of music until it was sadly time for our day to come to an end. However it finished perfectly in the most traditional Scottish way with Caledonia and Loch Lomond. Another moment we will never forget spent with our family and friends.

What made it so special? 

Our wedding was originally meant to be last year 19.09.20 but due to the pandemic we made the very tough decision to postpone along side many other couples due to be wed to keep our family and friends safe. So being able to finally get married this year with our nearest and dearest there to witness it and be part of the celebrations meant absolutely everything to us.

What was your favourite part of the day? 

It is hard to pick a particular favourite moment of our wedding as it was filled with love and happiness throughout the entire day.

Our wedding ceremony was so special as at the end of the day actually getting married to your one and only true love is the pinnacle moment of what your celebrating! I walked down the aisle to the song “only love” which is one our favourites so the song has a sentimental meaning to us now forever.

Seeing all of our guests reactions during the ceremony from laughter to tears of joy is something that we will never forget. It was so so emotional. Walking back up with aisle together as husband and wife was a surreal experience to think we have FINALLY tied the knot after waiting for so long.

What advice do you have for other couples? 

Enjoy every single minute of the day as it really is the quickest day of your lives.

Try to make sure you get the opportunity to spend some time alone to take it all in together and reflect on your day.

Another kind word of advice is to try and not get too caught up in all of the planning. Give yourself days of no wedding admin to relax and enjoy the experience. Always remind yourself about what actually matters the most and that your wedding day is first and foremost a reflection on you both as a couple and not to people please.

How is married life treating you? 

Married life is treating us very well. We really enjoyed being in our own little post wedding bubble before reality had to kick back in. We had an amazing few days away together after our wedding on our mini moon. We can’t stop talking about our wedding and we can honestly both say it was the BEST day of our lives.

The post wedding blues are definitely real. We would do anything to be able to do it all over again! We have really loved hearing from our family and friends how much they loved the venue and how great a time they had celebrating with us at Kinkell Byre.

Supplier Shout Out

Photographer: Photos by Zoe
Accommodation: Fairmont
Piper: Rich Gordon
Band: The White Doves
Catering: Lazy Sunday Catering
Evening Food: Wild Fire Pizza
Cake: Loren Brand Cake
Bar: Event Bars St Andrews
Lighting: i-Light
Florist: Blue Poppy Florist
Decor: Gloam
Light up Letters/Golf: go2 Events
Videographer: Graeme MacKay
Humanist/Registrar: Iain Whitelaw
Transport: A View from the slow lane
Day Music: Ginny and the Tonic
Balloons: The Balloon Boutique
Dress: Amy King Bridal
Hair: Dana @ Studio One
Makeup: Kerry @ Pretty You