A St. Andrews Barn Wedding
This wedding was the catalyst for our careers as wedding planners. Alana was a school friend of Mercedes, who reached out to her announcing she and Luke would likely get engaged in about a year, so get cracking and set up that wedding planning business! Yes ma’am.
On cue, one year later with Scarlett & Bell firmly in the Companies House register, Alana and Luke became our first clients. They had fallen in love with a barn venue (great big red doors, Alana loves red, and enough glam for a rustic setting) just outside of the beautiful Scottish town — particularly famous for its golf — St. Andrews. Theatrics comes with these two, Luke is a stand-up comic with a background on the West End, Alana, at the time, was a DJ/Presenter and soon-to-be co-founder of health brand the Gut Stuff (with her twin sister, Lisa), and their little dog Pongo, an ex-Broadway star who graced the stage as Bruiser from Legally Blonde. So even with lots of cuts, it was going to be a big wedding, with much hilarity and personality.
As my (Mercedes) first wedding, it was an even more collaborative process than perhaps it is now. But that really set the tone for how I would always prefer working, closely with couples, and with couples who often quickly became friends. We worked together on all the little details building out from the bare bones of Kinkell Byre. All deep red and rich tones, polaroid snaps and transfer tattoos of their newlywed faces. Not a detail was overlooked, nor a minute of the day unoccupied.
Many years ago now, Alana and Luke have a beautiful little girl, Luke is back on stage and Alana’s company is a household name, and very sadly little Pongo is no longer with us. But the memories of helping Alana into her dress, dragging a bridesmaid (who was a friend!) out of bed for her hair and makeup, swinging around the dancefloor during the ceilidh, and a couple of particularly emotional speeches stay with me all these years on and will likely never fade. I doubt those two will ever know quite how thankful I am to them for kick-starting this business, at least here I can put it in black and white. Thank you Alana and Luke!
