A Scottish Wedding in an Historic Building: Wedding Bagpipes, a Kilt and Family Tartan Colors Add Scottish Flavor to Wedding

     Wedding bagpipes, a kilt and colors inspired by a family tartan created the perfect Scottish wedding for Montreal couple, Heather and Bill.

     The couple knew from the start that they wanted a small wedding at a cozy location.

     “Over the years we’ve been to weddings with 150 or more invited guests and the bride and groom were running around like a couple of chickens with their heads cut off! They didn’t get to speak with anyone. The bride didn’t even get to sit down to eat, and they didn’t get to dance with each other except for the first dance,” says Heather. “We were going to be spending thousands of dollars for a one-day celebration, and wanted to remember it as a relaxing and fun time; not something we just wanted to be over with.”

     After ruling out Montreal’s large halls and downtown hotels, the couple began searching in their own town.

    “I spoke to my parents one weekend, feeling quite frustrated that we hadn’t found a reception site yet … They suggested we start looking closer to home,” says Heather.

     During a walk along Lac. St. Louis, a few blocks from her home, Heather discovered several stone buildings that lined the water. She found out that one of the buildings was La Vieille Brasserie, a former brewery, which could be rented for weddings.

     After one visit, the couple knew the place was perfect for their Scottish wedding.

     “We immediately fell in love with the striking wood staircase leading to the loft upstairs … its clean wood floors, old field stone walls, glowing lanterns, and French doors, which led to a large balcony overlooking the lake,” says Heather. “All this for just $30 an hour!”

     The couple chose to have their ceremony at an historic united church in their town, followed by a dinner reception at the former brewery. The 58-guest wedding was a “down-home, Scottish wedding” (both have Scottish ancestry), which included several Scottish elements such as a wedding bagpiper, who piped them into the reception, as well as a family kilt worn by the groom. The couple also used Bill’s family tartan as the main accent in their decorations and favors.

Along with these unique elements, the couple included several traditional wedding reception rituals such as toasts, a first dance, bouquet toss, and cake cutting. The cost of the wedding was approximately $12,000.

Heather says friends and family played a big role in the planning of the wedding, and on the day itself. She says her attendants were there for her as “listening ears” offering support and making her laugh when she needed to unwind. Other friends and family members helped make everything run smoothly on the big day.

“I’ve been to weddings where the bride and groom had to fix every problem themselves, therefore never being able to let go and just have fun. I highly recommend that brides and grooms ask a group of friends or family members to take care of the “little” things that can turn “big” on the wedding day. Anything that went wrong on our day (i.e. the table cards got misplaced) was fixed behind the scenes without us even knowing it because our attendants and my parents knew our plan and just jumped in and fixed things immediately,” she says. 

She says adding the Scottish elements, such as the wedding bagpipes, made the wedding even more special, and that the setting for the reception couldn’t have been better.

“Maybe it sounds corny, but we wouldn’t change a thing. I don’t believe anything in this world is perfect; perfection doesn’t exist, but our wedding day was definitely our kind of perfect.”