Your Humanist Wedding in Scotland: Guests? What guests?

I often get enquiries from couples who are almost apologetic about having a small ceremony with hardly any guests, perhaps just family and a few close friends.

You might be surprised to hear that this is very common. Not everyone has a large family, or a wide circle of friends.

Some couples may want to restrict the numbers during the day so as to reduce costs.

The main point is, it's your day and your ceremony, so do what you want!

When I was contacted by Ian last year, he was very clear about his plans.

"No guests Andy, just me and Amanda (the bride), and you of course!". "No fuss, no drama, just a simple ceremony and the job's a good 'un". Yes, Ian lives in Yorkshire 😊.

Now, I've conducted ceremonies with very few guest, but not one without any guests at all.

We then had a discussion that the law in Scotland also requires two witnesses to be present, but once Ian knew that any two people over the age of 16 can be a witness to a ceremony in Scotland, he was confident he'd be able to grab two strangers from the bar in the hotel!

In fact, it would only add to the romance of the occasion. I ended up bringing the witnesses with me, but that's another story....

So, on to the big day itself.

Ian and Amanda had settled in the day before in one of the boathouses at Dundas Castle (https://dundascastle.co.uk/). By the way, I don't get paid for any of these venue shout-outs.

In keeping with the unplugged nature of the ceremony, the five of us went out onto the veranda overlooking the water.

The ceremony was just wonderful; it felt so different talking TO the couple rather than to their guests and I really enjoyed it.

As you can see from the pics, Ian and Amanda share a great sense of humour. They pretty much laughed their heads off all they way through!