Indie Farm Wedding in Scotland | Whimsical Wonderland Weddings

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WWW readers Donna and Kyle gave themselves the epic task of planning a wedding and moving to Australia the week after. Cue a lot of organisation and support from their loved ones.

They chose to marry on the 13th July 2013 at Cormiston Farm, Biggar, Scotland. Donna and Kyle wanted their wedding to be individual and to reflect their artistic and crafty personalities.

Donna looked incredible in her Joyce Young dress with Flo & Percy hair band and perfectly wavy hair. While Kyle donned a three piece suit by Reiss with print tie and tan shoes. Ahh how I adore their wedding day.

Thanks so much to the fabulous Mirrorbox Photography for sharing their photography with us today.

We had a big trip to Australia planned in September 2011 to visit family and there were suggestions from everyone that Kyle would pop the question. I was absolutely convinced any proposal had been postponed. Kyle's so careful with money and NEVER strays from budgets or plans so much so, I call him Captain Sensible. We arrived in Sydney and Kyle quickly told my family that he planned to propose. We climbed Sydney harbour bridge and I failed to notice that we were allowed to hang about the top just ourselves for quite a bit as our climbing group and instructor had all been informed by my family that a proposal could take place. It didn't as Kyle had decided it wasn't quite right.

We visited a few places in Oz but fell in love with a place called Adel's Grove. It was a little oasis in the middle of the outback, beautifully picturesque and peaceful. Kyle asked a million time if I had ever seen anywhere nicer and looked pleased that I hadn't. The proposal came on 13th September after Kyle got me out of bed early for a swim. I thought something was odd when he hid behind a tree to change into his swimming shorts - we were in the outback and there was no one about apart from us!! Kyle came out from behind the tree wearing some new clothes. I remembered him trying them on in Glasgow and joking that he looked good enough to marry - I got butteries straight away! Kyle then got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife with.... 'THE RING'! We were sat next to some water and an old fruit tree with the leaves falling around us. It couldn't have been more romantic or perfect!

The Dress + Accessories... Dress: Joyce Young (Glasgow, London). Shoes: Rachel Simpson. I originally bought Jimmy Choo's but decided against them in the end as the 4" heel didn't work on the farm. Someone on ebay got an amazing deal whilst I worried about having no shoes as my size 4 Rachel Simpson shoes went missing. They only got delivered the Wednesday before my wedding (despite a June delivery date).

Headband: Flo & Percy. I fell in love with this headband after seeing it by chance in an old magazine at work. Someone from girl group The Saturday's had worn the piece when she got married and she was featured in the magazine with it on. I couldn't believe my luck that Flo and Percy had a stockist in Glasgow!

Oh, I forgot to mention dress number 2. It was a vintage dress my Nana had bought for me. She had seen it in a local charity shop, thought it was beautiful and thought I would love it... Bless! It would have been a fab story if I had but unfortunately it wasn't quite right. My hubby likes to joke about me having 3 wedding dresses but surely I cant be held responsible for that one? :)

The second reading called 'A pound of Love' was read by my close friend, Cath. I couldn't have asked a better person to do it, not only is she very special to us she read it beautifully with bags load of charisma! The poem is in the style of a cake mix however lists the essential ingredients needed for a happy marriage.

The girls got to decide what they wanted the hairdresser and make up artist to do (my only request was that hair was up and make up was subtle). I wanted them to feel comfortable and to pick styles and shades they liked - I thought they looked absolutely gorgeous. The shoes were from Faith but not very comfortable, we also got married during the middle of the heatwave that hit the UK summer 2013 so the girls quickly opted for sandals after the ceremony.

Our florist quoted us for the needed reception flowers however we decided not to use them as the price was too high for us - we got the feeling that we didn't get the best price as it was only 1 week to go before the wedding. Kyle's mum offered to order, collect and bring flowers to the wedding from her local florist in Falkirk. This saved us a couple of hundred pounds and we thought they looked great. In the end we actually had far too many flowers so it wasn't something that we organised that well.

Kyle and I wanted to design and make as many things as possible, we got a kids badge making machine and made our name settings out of pin badges. We also named our tables after our favourite places and found a fabulous company to age pictures of us at each place and print a little story of why the place was important to us. Kyle's Grandad is an blacksmith and Kyle's dad, Bob and his Grandad, John made all the crooks for us to hang our jam jars and bunting from. Our bunting came all the way from Australia with my step mum, Pam and sister, Tianna picking the material and making it for us. Pam owns a printing company and had her fabulous workers sew for 3 days to make 4 lots of 37.5 metres and 1 lot of 20 metres, 970 flags all up!! My sister also donated some material from her special 'blankee' that she's had from a baby so its extra special! The majority of the bunting will need to make it's way back over to Australia as it'll now be used to help celebrate any future Crichton family event.

Our vintage teacups were borrowed from my good friends, Emma and Fallon. They run the Subterranean Diner, a supper club based in Glasgow who also provide vintage items for hire. They have a number of beautiful vintage pieces and we've also donated some of the items we lovingly collected, typewriter, radio some bunting etc. The majority of our vintage bottles, trunk, typewriter and radio were sourced at antique fairs in Glasgow and Edinburgh. The bottles were over 100 years old and most of them had local place names on them, we've kept a few e.g. Falkirk (where Kyle is from) and Glasgow. Kyle's mum, Liz donated a few vintage bottles too and we had some brown beer bottles that Kyle was more than happy to help empty. :)

Our games were a mixture of hire and home made. The coconut shy was made by Kyle and his dad, Bob. The horseshoes were donated by Kyle's cousins from the horses they both ride. The rest were hired from Butler and Taylor (Glasgow). All other decorations were collected over the 18 month planning stage. The wooden love hearts came from a little shop in Skye where we holidayed for Kyle's birthday, our metal and wicker love hearts came from a little shop in Aberfeldy where Kyle's parents have a caravan. It was lovely to look around on the day and see everything we had carefully selected or made on show.

I know everyone advises couples to enjoy every moment as it passes so quickly. This is SO true and you don't fully appreciate this until its too late. The best advice I could give would be to take the time to have a couple of minutes chat with whoever approaches you. I promised lots of people I would make my way back to speak to them and felt very sad that I didn't manage to.

We would also advise couples to look very closely at quotes. We didn't only have an issue with our flowers we had our piper and sound equipment service ask for additional travel money. Despite both our quotes stating that travel was included both these services got in contact (only a few weeks before the wedding) stating they hadn't realised how far away Biggar was and how that impacted on them. Pay attention to the little things, for example, make sure your quotes state the venue address on them for extra assurance. Weddings are costly so any amounts that weren't initially agreed are a stress that you don't need to deal with just before the big day.

We would also urge couples to fully research any potential service they are thinking about booking. Originally we booked a band for our night time entertainment however they cancelled 6 months before the big day which was really upsetting. At that point all the other wedding bands that we liked were booked and we regretted not looking into the band more before hiring them. The bands details had been passed by a work colleague and we went on word of mouth alone... sadly, this is sometimes not good enough. We also booked a service to provide a cake table and they closed down and didn't even get in contact... we found out they had branched in to something else Facebook. We came into contact with them early on through a wedding fair and I suppose incorrectly thought this was proof enough of them being reputable. Although everything was perfect on the day we could have saved ourselves a lot of stress if we had researched from the start and made sure our quotes were crystal clear... you live and learn.

Also PLEASE make sure you have insurance!! We didn't actually have wedding insurance and only had travel insurance. Kyle's accident involved one of his mum's dogs who have been part of the family for years! Kyle being well was obviously our main concern and we also felt EXTREMELY lucky the accident had happened a few days after the wedding and not before it as everything would have had to have been cancelled. We also counted our blessings that we had travel insurance and managed to claim back all our travel costs related to cancelling our backpackneymoon. You just never know what can happen and its probably one of the best purchases you'll make for the wedding and honeymoon.

Venue | Cormiston Farm, Biggar

Food/amazing hog roast | The Mill Inn Coulter

Photographer | Mirrorbox Photography

Dress | Joyce Young Bridal

Headband | Flo & Percy @ Mellecloche Glasgow

Shoes | Rachel Simpson @ Mellecloche Glasgow

Groom |Reiss

Hair | Lilly-Lu Hair Beauty (Biggar)

Bridemaids | Dessy

Personal wedding website| www.kyle-and-donna.gettingmarried.co.uk

Cake table | Three Sisters Bake

DJ | Ian Dobbins