In June, the wonderful! Beautiful! Spectacular! Alex Horne didn't see sense and signed up to a lifetime of rubbish when we got married out at The Cruin on Loch Lomond. To make matters worse, She's now going by the infinitely-harder-to-spell-down-the-phone moniker of Alex Galletly.
Alex is the best. She'll light up a room. She'll make everyone happy. She's way out of my league. Without her encouragement, I'd be a wreck of a man and without me holding her back, Alex'd probably be The Queen by now. Despite her massive flaws (she's left a BLOODY MUG ON MY BLOODY DESK), I wouldn't change a thing about her and goddamn it if she didn't look amazing on the day:
From the first time we went out for dinner, to getting engaged in Philadelphia, to moving to Glasgow together, to getting married - we've been really happy. It's disgusting. When people ask "how's married life?" they're often disappointed to hear "it's exactly the same as non-married life", I guess that doesn't sound so romantic. The thing is, non-married life was great, so being married is great. It was already romantic. Urgh. Seriously though, if we'd had any doubts I imagine there'd have been tears and arguments. Without stress, planning our wedding was, dare I say it, fun.
We had an amazing day surrounded by friends and family. The weather was crap, but it's always crap so that didn't matter. There was laughter, tissues-at-the-ready, drinking, rolls-and-sausage and dancing. It was great fun. The speeches were good. No fisticuffs went down. I didn't get jilted. I've put some more photos over here.
Big thanks to everyone:
The staff at The Cruin were unbelievabe - they were friendly, helpful and made the day run really smoothly. Once everything kicked off, we didn't need to think about a thing. The venue is beautiful, the food was delicious, and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a Loch Lomond wedding without hesitation.
Alex's vintage dress came from Dragonfly Dress Design and her flowers from Sparrow and Rose. Both run from Elderslie St. in Glasgow's West End and were wonderfully accommodating.
Music was provided by The Wild Cigarillos, a ceilidh band from Edinburgh. They got everyone up dancing and were brilliant at explaining what the hell to do for the inexperienced (myself more than anyone).
Our humanist celebrant was Sheena Johnston. Sheena was great. She met with us a few times beforehand and put together a ceremony that was really warm, personal and, y'know, human. Many of our guests mentioned how good the service (is that the right word?) was and, as humanist weddings become increasingly popular - to anyone looking for a celebrant, honestly, Sheena is the best!
Stationary was provided by me! I'll maybe put up some images soon - despite being produced in a frantic rush, it all turned out ok in the end.
Our photographer was Nikki Leadbetter. From our first meeting, Nikki has been a complete pleasure to work and hang out with. She understood exactly what we wanted (informal / plenty pictures of guests / catch the atmosphere of the day) and worked really hard all day with enthusiasm, energy and a big smile on her face. Nikki put all our guests at ease and we're really happy with how our photographs turned out. Hire her, she's great.
Lastly, thanks to our friends and family for spending the day with us and for all the amazing gifts. We've got a pile of thankyou cards still to be sent out (sorry) - everyone seemed to have a blast. Thanks to my best man Fergi, and to the bridesmaids Kirsty, Nicola and Tara for all your help too. To Fergi, Mark, Chris, Steve, Steven, Darren and Stuart - that weekend down in Manchester was one of the funniest I've ever had. Cheers.
To our parents, we couldn't have done it without you. Malcolm & Mary Galletly, Fiona & Ian Horne - very proud to have you looking out for us.