Cilla and Larry met while working in an Emergency Department in Oxford in 1998; Larry was a doctor and Cilla was a nurse on a European working holiday. Larry proposed to Cilla in April 2008, while driving through the Scottish countryside
This Scottish wedding was the second of two weddings for Larry and Cilla. The first was held in Australia, where they currently live, while the second celebration was held in chapel of Glasgow University. Larry went to Glasgow University, and several of their friends were married there previously. The couple’s reception was in Randolph Hall, adjacent to Glasgow University Chapel which Larry previously remembered as his University exam venue. Larry told us “our venue suited our small group perfectly, and we were pleased to have both the ceremony and the reception in the same location, so that our guests did not have to travel between the two. The staff at the University looked after us wonderfully – we could not have been more supported.”
Not only did the couple have two weddings but there were also two rings and two different wedding dresses for Cilla, both from Brisbane supplier, Anita’s Fashion. The Scottish outfit was a lace and beaded gown, with a matching off-the-shoulder jacket, to contend with the cold weather. The dress was teamed with raspberry coloured court shoes and a chapel-length, lace-edged mantilla veil. Cilla wore diamond drop earrings and matching bracelets. Larry wore his own Lindsay tartan kilt & plain leather sporran. Larry’s ring was a plain white-gold band, hand made by Boyce Jewellers, Queensland. Cilla ‘s two diamond wedding bands were made by Hofstay’s Jewellers, Brisbane, and feature a single amethyst and peridot, the couple’s birthstones.
When the veil was removed for the reception, Cilla had ivory silk flowers for her hair. Her ‘something old’ was a lace hankie that her mother had carried on her wedding day, ‘something new’ were the bracelets, ‘something borrowed’ was a diamante wrist cuff which adorned the stem of the bouquet and ‘something blue’ was a sapphire and gold pendant, which had belonged to the groom’s much loved aunt The pendant was also attached to the bouquet with ribbon.
Cilla’s hair was styled by Ruth Chalk of BeautifulYou and Cilla did her own make-up. Ruby Flowers provided bouquets of red roses to match the bride’s shoes, with tulips, lavender and red berries, bound with the groom’s family tartan ribbon. The boys and fathers wore roses, berries and eucalyptus. The mothers wore corsages of orchids to match their outfits. Eucalyptus was included in all arrangements, to represent the bride’s Australian heritage. Church and table arrangements were tall arrangments of the same flowers, with fairy-lights woven through twigs. These arrangements were tied so that the guests could take them home.
LA Wedding Cars provided a 1940′s Beardmore taxi which took the bride and her parents to the church.
The processional in both weddings was Pachelbels’s Canon in d minor – played by string quartet in Australia and on a pipe organ in Glasgow. Glasgow had been preceded by fanfare from Te Deum – played at the start of Eurovision song contest. Both Cilla’s parents walked her down the aisle.
The wedding cake was provided by Top Tier and was a triple stacked gingerbread cake (groom’s favourite) with ivory icing, silk roses and lace detail. Larry’s aunt Morag had passed away at the start of 2010 and she had always planned to provide the couple’s wedding cake. To remember her, Larry and Cilla had a framed photo of her beside the cake. The harpist booked for the wedding unfortunately had to cancel at last minute due to a family illness so the dining music was supplied by iPod with music from the couple’s Australian wedding. Larry told us “We had had a music failure in Australia, so we couldn’t come into our reception to our planned music – Sigur Rόs ‘Hopipolla’ (Theme from Planet Earth). Because our Glasgow musician couldn’t make it, we were able to come into the second reception to this music.” Later in the evening, ceilidh band Benachally provided the entertainment. Larry told us “they were concerned to see a fairly small group in a fairly small room, but everyone had a fantastic time”.
Cilla and Larry told us that they “got a copy of the Scottish Wedding Directory and checked out the websites of every single photographer. Mark of Archibald Photography was one of the first we looked at but we kept coming back to it after going through them all – we liked the look of his work.”
Larry and Cilla describe their day as “magical”. As they said “not everything went the way we planned, but everything felt just the way the way it should have been.”
