Scottish Wedding With Humanist Ceremony At The Cow Shed

Lauren & Finlay share their Scottish Wedding at The Cow Shed, Crail. The brief was "Jurassic Park without the Dinosaurs" and by using foliage and potted plants as decoration with contrasting Industrial Decor the look is achieved, and then some. Bride Lauren wears Torum by Charlie Brear and looks absolutely striking in its simple, elegant, classic style. We have featured this dress before here and it is just timeless.   Styled to absolute perfection with props aplenty this Humanist Wedding at The Cow Shed Scotland with its Foliage decor is captured by Claire Fleck Photography. Claire has been previously featured on Rock My Wedding and her style is really modern fresh and intimate. You can see the feature here If you are looking for inspiration on how to dress a wedding then this is for you!

The Plan

Lauren the Bride: Our day was relaxed, full of laughter and full of creative touches. Both of us have an artistic background so wanted the day to reflect our creative interests and that of our friends. We wanted it full of green foliage and potted plants and used almost all of our mothers’ gardens to fill the venue. We wanted to compliment the industrial feel and natural elements of the barn setting while keeping an artistic edge.

The Bride

I found the process of finding my dress quite simple, I’d previously tried on a Catherine Dean dress in London and wanted to give it a second try back home. I looked up stockists and that’s how I found Lamesely Bridal. I had a flick through the dresses on arrival and found the Torum Charlie Brear dress and almost instantly knew this would be my dress. I loved its simplicity and elegance. It was exactly what I had been looking for. I teamed it with a simple silk band and rose gold heels.

My veil is from the 1920’s and belonged to my great grandmother. I loved it because the lace was so delicate and the floral and spot detail was so unusual. Other members of my family have also worn this over the years and I liked the idea of adding more history to this piece.

We both wore matching jewellery that had once belonged to Finlay’s grandparents. I wore a set of beautiful opal earrings and Finlay had a matching tiepin.

Our rings were designed and made by Katie Lees. I found her at a Wedding Collective event in Glasgow and really liked her style of jewellery.

The Groom

Finlay wanted an outfit that matched our outlook for the day. He wanted a more casual outfit so opted for a kilt with tweed Crail jacket and tan brogues. The ushers also wore the same outfit. Again the process was very relaxed and the outfits looked great against the Cow Shed backdrop and in the photographs by the water.

Venue : Scottish Wedding - The Cow Shed

We were so lucky with our venue. We visited the Cow Shed in its very first few days. At that point the venue consisted of only the cow shed and some unroofed walls (which were to become the larger roofed marquee area). They had great vision for the venue and we booked instantly with them. Over the next year and a half the venue grew dramatically and we were so excited to hear about all of their updates. The Cow Shed is a great mix of barn styling and industrial details. The team were so helpful throughout the entire process and no question was to small for them to address.

Colour Scheme and Décor

The décor of the venue was very important. We wanted lots of greenery – I mean lots. This was complemented with greys, cornflower blues and metallic details. We went to a Cow Shed supplier open day and met Jean and Kate from the Little White Cow. They were absolutely fantastic to work with. I told them I wanted it to be like Jurassic Park without the dinosaurs and they absolutely got what I meant.

The day before the wedding team Little White Cow, my mother, one of the bridesmaids and myself styled the venue, this took the whole day so definitely have a team when decorating your space. Jean and Kate created the most amazing and memorable displays and areas throughout the venue and our guests still talk about it.

Flowers and Foliage

We wanted to have as many personal and self-sourced/handmade aspects in our day as we could. We wanted a lot of greenery and luckily our mothers were happy to let us dismantle their gardens and we used lots of foliage and potted plants throughout the venue.

The Flower House made our bouquets and buttonholes and we had fully green bouquets, the colours and textures worked really well together. Pathhead Nurseries helped us decorate the area we got married in and created a wonderful greenery dressed window arch to frame the ceremony.

Bridesmaids

The three bridesmaids had beautifully simple dresses in a cornflower blue. Again when looking for dresses we went in with an open mind and the dress picked was one all of the girls liked. The cornflower blue suited all of their complexions and worked really well with the venue and other colours featured in the wedding.

Ceremony

We had a humanist ceremony. Our mothers helped us in ‘tying the knot’ with ribbons. It was a very personal ceremony about us as a couple, how we met and hopes for the future.

Entertainment

The Skylarks kept everyone dancing all night and were really accommodating to any requests we had. Everyone enjoyed the music and they played a wide range of music.

Catering

We really shopped around for a caterer and were really happy with our decision. Regis Catering created a delicious menu for our guests. They also ran the day for us, which was a huge weight of our shoulders as we could just enjoy our day without having to ensure everything was happening when it should have been.

Photographer

This was the first thing knew I wanted when we started planning as I have long been a fan of Claire’s photography style. Claire Fleck is such a talent. She really manages to capture natural moments so perfectly. Finlay and myself felt so at ease with her and this really comes across in the photos. We wanted more natural shots of the day and Claire really got this, we were so impressed.

DIY

Stationery – We designed all of our stationery ourselves. 

Little cow sheds – Made out of clay and glazed which were additional favours for our guests.

Table decorations – I made various vessels and tiles out of cement for additional decorative touches.

Other props – over the year and a half we collected various items and altered and decorated them to suit our theme.

Advice

Keep things simple where you can. Work out what you want your day to look like and be confident with your idea and stick with it. Ideas can come from anywhere – the idea for the tall bench covered in plants and details came from an Instagram stories from a fashion show. Decorating the venue can be a big job so have a team behind you! There are some fantastic stylists out there – the Little White Cow were fantastic.