Archibald Photography Blog

Some of you may have already seen the wedding of Sam and Martin featured on Annabel’s excellent blog LoveMyDress; a style diary related to weddings, art and fashion.  We also wanted to share it with you here as Mark loved photographing Sam and Martin’s vintage inspired wedding.

Sam and Martin met in the early 90s on a night out at the cinema with mutual friends.  Sam was only 14 and Martin was 16.  They liked each other but didn’t get until together a few years later (after lots of flirting and parties) at Sam’s 17th birthday party, where she rather unromantically and drunkenly attached herself to Martin for the evening! After that the couple were just inseparable and got married shortly before their 15th anniversary as a couple.

Martin and Sam got engaged whilst sitting in a quiet corner of the Rockefeller Plaza in New York City.  They had gone on holiday for Sam’s 30th so it ended up being a double celebration in the end!  Martin didn’t say anything, he just took the ring out of his pocket and put it on Sam’s finger.  Sam told us “he was super cool about it – I was very emotional and had to run into the loos in the Rockefeller Centre to fix my make up!”

The couple chose the Malmaison at the very last minute after the venue they had originally booked went into administration and cancelled their wedding with 4 weeks to go!  Sam had been to Malmaison for a business meeting and thought it was a cool venue and well suited to their small wedding, so they went to visit and booked it on the spot.  As Sam said “the style of the building and sumptuous decor was perfect, and looking back we were much happier with it as a venue and wished we had booked it from the beginning.”

Malmaison Hotel, Glasgow

Sam and Martin’s day was a huge success and they couldn’t have asked for more.  As they told us “the rooms were set up exactly to our specifications, and the staff were attentive and efficient with our guests.  We dealt with Marie Kelly who was just fabulous – she tailored the event exactly as we wanted, and suggested a great menu.”

Sam’s hair was by Debbie at Taylor Jax in Paisley – Sam simply showed her some images she had found online and she did the rest.  According to Sam “I never thought I could do ‘big hair’ but she did an amazing job.  I did my own make-up as I knew exactly what I wanted (and it gave me a reason to run amok in Fraser‘s cosmetics department!).”

Vintage inspired bride

Sam wore a Benjamin Roberts gown from Diane Honeyman in Ayr. “They were so helpful and really know their stuff in terms of finding a dress to suit the bride’s body shape. They let me try on a ridiculous number of gowns before I came back to the one they had picked out for me in the first place!” Sam recalled.

Sam’s main accessory was a satin, tulle and wire head piece from Trina at Baba C Designs.  Trina did a bespoke design for Sam which she was absolutely over the moon with – it was a real ‘statement’ piece’!  Sam also had a really nice bespoke touch on her shoes which was a stamp showing the wedding date on the sole.  The shoes were Diane Hassall, bought from The Accessory Boutique.

The gorgeous bride

Martin was a very cool groom wearing a fedora hat – it was a genuine Stetson, bought online from Village Hats and he looked super smooth!

Wedding Fedora Hat

Sam chose Flowers by Cherry Blossom as the florist and found them really enthusiastic and “totally up for providing the unusual flowers I wanted”.  Sam told us “the bouquet and arrangements were unstructured looking, just as we wanted, and complimented the style of the wedding perfectly.

Wedding flowers

Martin and Sam had a beautiful chocolate cake from Rainbow Sugarcraft in Peebles and apparently the unusual spiky design has become legendary; their guests can’t stop talking about it. Sam also said “it tasted as great as it looked!”

Wedding cake

There was no dancing at Sam and Martin’s wedding, just a meal as they were having a very small wedding.  They did, however, make up a playlist for the ipod of lots of songs that bring back memories of all the years they’ve been together.

Sam also commented that they were very pleased with their car. “We wanted a non traditional car so we hired a Maserati Quattroporte from Maserati Chauffuer Drive.   The driver was a lovely chap and even got me to the venue early!”

Bride's arrival

On booking Archibald Photography, Sam told us “we saw some of Mark’s work featured in Real Life Weddings magazine and just thought his style was very strong and very much the informal type of images we were looking for.  I had a chat with Mark on the phone and could tell he completely understood what we were looking for, so there was no decision to make really, we didn’t need to look any further.  On the day we had an absolute ball, doing the photos was effortless and Mark was so easy going throughout.  Our guests all commented on the fact he wasn’t telling us what to do or where to stand etc and they thought that was very refreshing to see.

When the photos were ready for viewing we also thought it was really good to come to Mark’s studio and see them on the big screen.  The personal service has really made it ‘an experience’ for us and we can’t wait to do the next bit of choosing photos for our storybook.”

Sam and Martin’s favourite image is one of them looking at each other on the stairs.  As they told us “it’s really different as a ‘wedding shot’ but just captures a nice moment between us, and epitomises the reason we wanted Mark to photograph the wedding – just capturing the moment.”

Wedding Photography Glasgow

The couple found it hard to decide on one best thing about their day, but in general felt that their ‘fast and loose’ approach to the day was what made it great! As Sam said “we didn’t plan it like a military operation or schedule anything too tightly, and we were able to just go with the flow and enjoy the day as it came.  As a result there was no stress or rushing to keep up and we were able to enjoy every minute of it. We loved our Humanist ceremony.  It was very informal and the celebrant had written a lovely piece describing our relationship over the years.  Some of it was even quite amusing -  it was just really great for the ceremony to be relaxed and informal.  Both of us (well, mainly me!) were grinning from ear to ear for the duration of the ceremony.”

Just married kiss

There always something on a wedding day that happens that you don’t expect and for Sam it was when she stepped out of the car. A huge gust of wind blew the train of her dress right underneath the car and pulled out the pin that was holding the front of my hair in place.  Sam told us “my dress ended up with a huge black mark on it but I thought ‘to hell with it, no point letting it spoil my fun!” and of course my mum was on hand to fix my hair!”

Overall, Sam and Martin would sum up their day as “just the best fun ever!  Everything we hoped for and more!”

Here’s our favourite images of their day: