Scottish wedding in Inverness

Vita and Jack’s Scotland wedding

It is a well known fact, that you can fly to America in less time than it takes to drive to Inverness, so with that in mind I was all set to fly London to Inverness with a well known budget airline, but with flights delayed and cancelled in the days running up to the wedding, I lost my nerve and decided to drive.  The issue was, everyone else seemed to choose the same Friday (a bank holiday weekend) to drive North, including a bunch of Nessie hunters heading for Loch Ness in search of the monster. Waze informed me it would be a 10 hour drive, Waze was wrong! Some 14 hours later I arrived at my accommodation for two nights in the heart of Inverness.

Winding time back some 10 months, Vita contacted me asking if I fancied a trip to Inverness to photograph her big Scottish wedding in a church with family connections, and a reception at her family owned estate, how could I refuse? I really love Scotland and in particular the Highlands, I also am partial to a drop of Scotch whisky (18 year old single malt of course).

Wedding at St Mary’s church, Eskerdale, Scotland.

Saturday morning I woke to the sound of rain, heavy rain. It rained and rained and rained some more as I headed off to a wooden chapel hidden deep in the countryside North of Inverness. The chapel was a lockdown project, while most of us built a garden shed Vita’s uncle built a chapel. The original intention was for the wedding ceremony to take place here, but the priest thought it wasn’t holy enough! Instead it was the location for the ushers lunch. Next stop was St Mary’s church at Eskadale, which seemed to be miles down a single track road and lacking a village to go with the church. It was still raining!

St Mary’s was commissioned by Thomas Fraser in 1826 and in 2021 reopened after restoration, to mark this event the church has it’s own whisky called Eskerdale with just 200 bottles produced, sadly I didn’t get to try it!

After the ceremony we headed off to Poyntzfield House for the reception. This was absolutely in the middle of nowhere as a lot of places seem to be in the part of Scotland, but very beautiful. A few small breaks in the wet weather allowed the couple and their guests to enjoy the scenic location. Dinner and speeches were followed by the dancing, being a Scottish wedding you don’t need me to tell you it was a great party that went on until the early hours.