ROMANTIC WEDDING IN SCOTLAND
For those of you wishing to have a Romantic Wedding in Scotland there are several companies available online to help you to organize your special day.
They will usually undertake weddings of any size and it can be tailor made to your requirements.
Whether you chose one of the unusual weddings mentioned on this site or a village church, castle, manor house or a hotel you will find excellent companies to organize venues, catering, transport, pipers, kilt hire, legal paperwork (if you are not resident in Scotland) video’s, photographs, honeymoon, and sightseeing. Whatever you require! (NOTE Gay Weddings or civil partnership ceremonies or commitment ceremonies are available throughout Scotland)
A truly romantic setting for your wedding would be Dundas Castle. Only a few miles from Scotland’s capital Edinburgh. This is an historic castle set in 500 acres. They can hold both civil and religious ceremonies and can cater for up to 200 guests. If you decide to honeymoon there it has 5 star accommodation and activities include golf, falconry, shooting, rock climbing, 4×4 driving and archery.
Guthrie Castle, built in 1468 is a fairytale castle which hosts weddings in the Chapel, Great Hall or the Walled Garden. Here you could spend your wedding night in splendour in a beautiful four poster bed.
Murthly Castle and Chapel set in Macbeth country near Dunkeld, Scotland provides romantic and idyllic settings for the perfect wedding. The historic castle is from the 14th century and the chapel is 17th century. It is beautiful, private and romantic and can cater for up to 250 guests.
Another beautiful Scottish Castle is Glenapp. It was built in 1870 and is a magical and romantic setting for a wedding and honeymoon. It has secluded woods, a walled garden, all weather tennis and croquet lawn.
Finally the Travel Advice Pages favourite is Blair Castle. This is the ancient seat of the Dukes and Earls of Atholl. The castle dates from the 13th century. It is set in 2,500 acres of ground on an estate of over 145,000 acres. Here you can opt to marry in the Library, if you are a small wedding of up to 40 guests or in the elegant State Dining Room, a beautiful Georgian room with superb views. The Ballroom can hold up to 220 guests for ceremonies, dining and dancing. If you want to arrive in the style of a princess, horse drawn carriages are available locally too.
There are many beautiful, romantic castles available in Scotland, England and Wales, these are just a small selection of the Travel Advice Pages favourites for a Romantic Wedding in Scotland.
UNUSUAL WEDDING VENUES
While researching weddings I came across several unusual wedding venues in Scotland that you might be interested in.
In Scotland apart from the beautiful Country Houses and Castles available for weddings, there are a number of more unusual settings for your big day.
The Eala Bhan ( Gaelic for White Swan) is a converted herring drifter (large boat to the rest of us) with modern facilities. It can be hired for a day, evening, weekend or even longer.
It can be moored near Urquhart Castle for your ceremony or you may prefer to cruise to Loch Ness and have your Wedding there. Perhaps with the famous Loch Ness Monster in the pictures as an extra guest.
Another beautiful Scottish location is the Rua Reidh Lighthouse. The is on a spectacular cliff top near Gairloch.
Back to Loch Ness again to a luxury Lodge overlooking the Loch. Here you would have five star luxury for yourself and your guests for the wedding and the honeymoon. You could wake up every morning to the spectacular views of Loch Ness.
One of the most famous places in Scotland to get married is Gretna Green. This is the traditional place for those eloping to get married. Now you needn’t elope to enjoy a wonderful wedding there. The Swallow Gretna Hall Hotel was built in 1710 in the village of Gretna Green. It was the original marriage house of the village. Today you can get married in the Blacksmith’s Cottage, the Blacksmith’s workshop or the Linton Room.
A seaplane or a hot air balloon are other great ideas for a Scottish wedding. All that spectacular scenery!
If you enjoyed the movie Brave Heart and Mel Gibson of course, you might like to consider getting married at the Wallace Monument. It is an historic 220 foot high monument to William Wallace built in 1867 on the Abbey Craig and it is a distinctive venue for weddings in Scotland.
Another historic site for a wedding is in the Outer Hebrides where the prehistoric Callanish Standing Stones on the lovely Isle of Lewis could be mute witnesses to the ceremony.
Only the brave would have ventured here a hundred years ago, but it is not unheard of today to hold a wedding ceremony in the Jedburgh Castle Jail, the 19th century Howard Reform prison on the site of the Royal Castle of Jedburgh.
Another well loved location is Rob Roy’s birthplace at Monachyle Mhor in the Trossachs.
Finally if you would like to stage your wedding on the highest spot in the UK then Cairngorm Mountain is the place for you. You take the funicular railway to the top and everything is there that you will need for the big day plus the most wonderful view.
I hope Travel Advice Pages has provided you with a few ideas for your wedding venue and we hope you enjoyed the unusual wedding venues in Scotland.
ROSSLYN CHAPEL, SCOTLAND FOR A UNIQUE HOLIDAY EXPERIENCE
For everyone who read the Da Vinci Code the name of Rosslyn Chapel will be quite familiar. We think it would be an intriguing place to visit. Of course the surrounding area is quite beautiful too and there are many places of interest to visit, especially for those interested in history or the Knights Templar.
Rosslyn Chapel is used as a church but includes a Museum and is a focus for both, tourists and people interested in the Freemasons, Knights Templar, the St Clair/Sinclair clan and various mythologies.
Just to the south of Rosslyn Chapel can be found a wonderful castle jutting into the river gorge. Walk along the lane (near car park) until you reach an old stone bridge high above the Esk valley: the private Rosslyn Castle will stand before you. A few miles further south of Rosslyn Chapel lies Temple, a village with an interesting old church, the former site of Balantrodoch, the Templars’ headquarters in Scotland.
The Freemason connection is explained in Rosslyn’s Museum. In the 17th century Oliver Cromwell - a Grand Master Mason - refused to allow Rosslyn Chapel to be destroyed. The Sinclairs were enemies (Royalists as opposed to Roundheads), but though Cromwell’s troops destroyed Rosslyn Castle, on his instructions they left the Chapel. In 1962, an Edinburgh schoolmaster claimed that the Holy Grail was hidden in Rosslyn Chapel’s Apprentice Pillar. He believed it contained a lead casket, containing the legendary cup used by Christ at the Last Supper and later used to collect His blood. The Hiram Key, a book published in 1996, and its sequel The Second Messiah discusses the Apprentice Pillar and the Holy Grail. Its authors said there were credible grounds for suggesting Rosslyn Church was built as a shrine for the holy scrolls. In 1998 anthropologist Dr Keith Laidler wrote a book in which he claimed that Christ’s mummified head was buried in Rosslyn’s vault; he claimed that an inscription on the Apprentice Pillar reads ‘Here beneath this pillar lies the head of God.’ Knights Templar apparently lie in full battle armour in Rosslyn’s sealed vault below the chapel. Sir Walter Scott wrote in ‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel’ “that chapel proud, where Roslin’s chiefs uncoffined lie”.
Rosslyn Chapel Trust - responsible for the chapel’s conservation - has reportedly considered allowing archaeologists the opportunity to probe its sealed vaults. Some of the greatest artifacts in archaeological folklore are said to exist under Rosslyn Chapel.
The greatest and most original carving of all at Rosslyn is the extraordinary knotted Apprentice Pillar (around 2.5m high), symbolising the ‘Tree of Life’, at the south-eastern corner of the Lady Chapel. According to local legend, the pillar was made by an apprentice during the absence of the master mason, who killed him in a fit of jealousy on seeing the finished work. A tiny head of a man with a slashed forehead, set at the apex of Rosslyn Chapel ceiling at the far northwestern corner of the building, is popularly supposed to represent the apprentice, his murderer the corresponding head at the opposite site. The entwined dragons at the foot - eight winged serpents which have eaten evil’s forbidden fruit - are symbols of Satan, and were probably inspired by Norse mythology. The spirals which coil around the ‘Tree of Life’ form a double helix, reminiscent of DNA - the basis of life - but intriguingly when the pillar was carved the meaning of the double helix wasn’t to be discovered for another 500 years. Just left of the Altar of the Blessed Virgin, with at the right of the pillar a particularly important carving: Lucifer, the fallen angel, bound and upside down.
All in all a very intriguing and mysterious place which is well worth a visit while you are in Scotland.
The above information was obtained from the Edinburgh Architecture/ Rosslyn Chapel web page .
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