Tabitha & Jed’s romantic Easdale Island elopement

This wedding story is not for someone feeling anxious about their wedding dress getting dirty – or even more 100% wet. 😀

Tabitha & Jed – when they’re not adventuring in their trusty VW Rusty or at home in Manchester, you can find them on Easdale Island, place which is really dear to them and which they have chosen to elope at. With just a closest family by their side and their son Rex and dog Alfie running around, it was a perfect celebration of the deep love and commitment they have for each other.

Easdale is such a special place. It is a very small island on the rugged West coast of Scotland and it is only accessible with a small passenger ferry – there are no roads and cars on the island, just a line of colourful wheel-barrows near the pier – one for each cottage to carry groceries off the ferry to the cottages.

You can easily walk around the whole island in under 15 minutes or climb the hill in the middle of the island, or – if the weather is good, take a dip in one of the abandoned slate quarries. Slate is the reason why this island was populated in the first place – lines of cute tiny cottages for workers were built, but after the industry worn off and the deep quarries flodded with seawater during a massive storm, the population left for big cities and eventually was replaced by holiday makers, but still around 50 locals are permanent inhabitants of the island.

Tabitha got ready with her mum by her side in a cute house called An Lionadh, with sea views all around and walked up to quarries to meet up with her soon to be husband, so they can walk together to the top of Easdale Island and get married on the hill. The sweet ceremony was written by Rhona Mclachlan and with a lot of assistance by their son Rex who was the keeper of the rings, and their mums who assisted with the handfasting and it all finished off with the sound of bagpipes, to which Tabs and Jed had their first dance on the cliffs. Afterwards we all headed home for a bit, to warm up and cut the cutest little cake (as you can imagine Rex was especially excited about this).

Then we headed off with just Tabs and Jed for some “alone time” and photos, walking around the island. The weather was perfect for the ceremony (a bit chilly, but no rain) but as soon as we stepped out of the house we could feel the rain approaching. We headed to the quarries and soon enough a drizzly rain was here, we took some photos and headed down to the lake, where Tabs and Jed wanted to go in for a “wee paddle”, well they were pretty wet by this time already so Jed just took his jacket off, wrapped his phone in it and threw it across to the shore to Harry the videographer and 1, 2, 3… they were in! All in the water, swimming around in their wedding dress in a place they love so much in a drizzly rain, giving me very strong The Notebook vibes.

A day to remember for sure and you should have seen the faces of the family when we got back to the cottage! 😀

Location: An Lionadh (Aibnb) on Easdale Island, Scotland | Photography: Ceranna Photography | Videography & Drone Photography: Harry Tarbuck of Servo Creatives | Humanist Celebrant: Rhona Mclachlan | Piper: Grant Macleod, The Munro Bagpiper | Florist: Dried wedding bouquet from To a Mountain Daisy