Two Americans Elope to Edinburgh | Intimate Elopement | Tess & Elliot

Edinburgh Elopement

Sometimes I cannot believe I get to meet such amazing souls. Like these two free spirited Americans decided to elope to Scotland! Tess & Elliot, who live in Kentucky – yep, like the fried chicken found me online when they were researching their idea of Edinburgh Destination Elopement. As they’re not into formalities and a vision of great big wedding doesn’t really excite them, they’ve decided to do a trip instead, just the two of them. So they started to plan their small wedding in Scotland. We exchanged couple emails, I recommended a wonderful and fun celebrant Dorothy of Humanist Association Scotland and here we were, Skyping across the ocean. Basically we just confirmed when we meet and that everything what happens from then on is IT. Can’t even express how this rings the bell for me. To let go and just enjoy the moments together no matter what happens.

Wedding Day | Getting Ready

Couple months later, super sunny early summer day in Edinburgh and I am on the way to their Airbnb. Without any knowledge of the city they managed to book a gorgeous tiny flat right on Royal Mile. Just that morning they run into the Lili West flower shop nearby and got a bouquet and buttoniere. That’s them really, not overly planning or worrying, just sorting things as they’re happening. They got ready each in one room, I zipped Tess into her dress, she put on a necklace which used to belong to her granny and first look was here. Elliot is such a goof so some cheeky joke was inevitable. They packed their vows – Tess’s written on the back of an envelope.

Holyrood Park Elopement | Humanist Wedding Ceremony at St Anthony’s Chapel, Edinburgh

Joined by their celebrant Dorothy, we walked down through the crowds of Royal Mile towards Holyrood Park. We found a gorgeous spot at St Anthony’s Chapel. Although Elliot is fun and jokes all the time, watching them reading their vows was really beautiful and emotional. The humanist ceremony was perfectly suited to their fun loving personalities and traditional Scottish handfasting and quaich ceremony followed. Instead of Scotch they had Jack Daniels as a symbol of their homeland – love alternative wedding twists on tradition like this. Anyway, it was so windy on the hill that the whiskey got swept from the quaich. 😀

Elopement Photoshoot in the Old Town

After the ceremony we took couple photos in the Holyrood Park and then we headed back to Edinburgh city and took couple more pictures. We even had a celebratory whisky toast in a pub on Grassmarket with complete strangers.

It’s been such an incredible pleasure to spend couple hours with these two and become part of the story they’ll tell to their children. Wait… how am I so sure? Are you ready for some gossip? It’s been couple months since the wedding and it’s been crazy whirlwind of couple months… I was just checking how come they haven’t downloaded the high res files and yep. They were super busy! Busy expecting new member of their Kentucky clan! So exciting!

This intimate wedding got featured in the press!

This elopement was featured over at We Are The Wanderers – read their story here and here at Wandering Weddings.

Edinburgh Elopement Photography

Intimate Scottish destination wedding shot by Ceranna Photography – Edinburgh Adventure Elopement Photographer.