Real Wedding – Gemma & Dale Cromar – 8th April 2023

Gemma & Dale finally got married back in April after 13 years of being together! They had such amazing personal touches throughout their day like some of Gemma’s musical theatre friends singing for the ceremony! In the blog, they have spoke about their big day and how they came to all their decisions…

Firstly a little bit about you..

How did you two meet?

We met in high school 2005 when we started S1. We actually went to our first year dance together as dates, but nothing more ever came of that at that point. We sat together in maths throughout our school career until S4 and were very good friends, always having a laugh together. We then began dating in S5 after a walk to the after party from our 2010 senior dance, and the rest is history from there! When we got married, we had been together for 13 years – unlucky for some, but not for us!

Where did you get engaged?

We got engaged on Kingsbarns Beach in St Andrews – just along the road from Kinkell Byre! We have spent a lot of time in St Andrews over the course of our relationship due to Dale’s parents having a flat there. Dale knew he wanted to propose somewhere with meaning to us so he lured me to the beach on an unsuspecting Saturday with the promise of a mac and cheese toastie from the Cheesy Toastie Shack at the beach after a walk. He popped the question and I also got my promised toastie! Unbeknown to me, both sets of parents were back in St Andrews, decorating the flat for our arrival back! We arrived to champagne, gorgeous flowers and the sun even came out for some photos. It was perfectly planned – well done Dale!

Finding your venue and planning the wedding

What was it that first attracted you to Kinkell? Was there something that stood out when you knew it would be the perfect place for your special day?

We always knew we wanted a relaxed, informal, party feel for our wedding. We also knew we needed a big space a big guest list due to our large families and having been so intertwined in each others lives for so long. We initially started searching round Glasgow, where we’re both from, both weren’t really finding anything. So the next sensible option was obviously St Andrews – where our relationship had developed over the years and of course, our engagement! When we went to view Kinkell Byre with Sophie on the Friday evening all set up for a Saturday wedding, along with a gorgeous East coast sunset too, we both walked out of there and said ‘that’s the one.’

Tell us a little bit about planning your wedding. Where did you start?

I spoke to other friends that had planned weddings before, because we really felt out of our depth. Especially with a venue like Kinkell, you really have so much flexibility on how you want to design your day. So we made our guest list to get numbers, wrote down some ideas for things we wanted ie. a rough plan of the day and went from there!

How did you decide on a colour theme or style?

I (Gemma) always knew I wanted burgundy to be a key colour of the day. So thankfully, with getting married in Easter time, when it wasn’t full summer yet, burgundy seemed like a perfect colour. Through discussion with our florist, Amy Annand, it became clear that white/ivory and sage green were the perfect minimalist colours to pair with this. We both like simple, clean and minimal décor so this was the perfect colour scheme to go with. The bridesmaids would be in burgundy and the groomsmen would wear their own kilts with sage green jackets.

Where did you find your suppliers?

As said before, we reached out to a couple of friends who had planned their own weddings, but we also used the recommended suppliers from Kinkell’s website – and discussed options with Kinkell too! I can’t recommend the team at Kinkell more for always having an answer when you’re stuck – they truly are wedding experts! We sometimes found it a bit overwhelming trying to narrow it down to final decisions but we were really happy with how it all turned out on the day.

Is there anything you wish someone had told you about before about planning a barn wedding?

To be honest, not really! We viewed a few barn venues for our wedding as we were pretty clear that this is what we both wanted, and of course we’re biased, but we think Kinkell Byre is the best!

Was there anything that was really important to you both to have?

We wanted fun, no stress and time with our guests. A couples photoshoot /family photos that would take hours out our day was of absolutely no appeal to us. As we said, we had a lot of guests on our day and we wanted to maximise our time with them as much as we could – after all, they had made a huge effort to travel to celebrate with us! We did end up sneaking off for 40 minutes to Kingsbarns Beach in the after dinner lull with our photographers and videographer for some photos and this did end up being an awesome part of the day – it was so nice to spend together having a wee chat and finding out how each other was!

The Big Day!

Tell us about your wedding day, what are your highlights and favourite memories?

My favourite memory (Gemma) was walking down the aisle with my dad, having my best friend sing me in and seeing Dale at the top of the aisle. As well as that, there was the realisation that all our friends and family were in the same room all looking at us and smiling! What a feeling, I’ll never forget that.

Dale’s favourite memory is all the dancing in the night-time! Fyra played the most incredible set and really filled the dance floor all night.

Have you any advice for other couples that are planning their wedding?

It’s so easy to say, but don’t let it take over your life in the year/two years leading up to the wedding. Enjoy every single second of it because before you know it, it’ll all be over and you’ll have some serious wedding blues! I would also say don’t let yourself get snowed under by small details/decisions. The bottom line is, only you know about those things on the day and your guests will be having too good a time to notice if those tiny things don’t go to plan. On the actual day – enjoy every. single. second. Everyone said it to us; ‘you won’t believe how fast it all goes!’ but it genuinely is so true. Try take a few times of the day to pop off just the two of you and have a chat and find out how your mornings were.

How is married life treating you?

Married life is lovely! Very much the same as it was before as we say to many people, but now we have matching surnames! As Gemma is a teacher, we didn’t go on our honeymoon straight away during the Easter holidays when we got married, we went in the Summer holidays. We would highly recommend this as it means you get to prolong the celebrations for even longer!

Supplier shout outs

Photographer – Gary @ Good Luck Wolf Photography

Videographer: John Paul Level @ Leven Films

Bar: Event Bars St Andrews

Lighting- i-Light

Florist: Amy Annand Flowers

Prop Hire: Fifty Six Events

Kilt Hire: Slanj Kilts

Make up & Hair: Sophie Alexis

Bridesmaid Dresses: Sarah Louise Bridal

Cars: VW Vintage Classic St Andrews

Catering: Gourlay Catering