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We ELOPED, in Scotland, on the Isle Of Skye, and it was EPIC.

Jessi

whoa! that’s actually us.

That’s us up there, looks EPIC AF. June 4, 2019 - we planned it secretly for MONTHS. Like two people at home knew until after the day was over. We went alone and made it about us - selfish, yes - but isn’t that what your wedding is supposed to be?

Casually browsing hashtags for Isle of Skye one day on instagram I came across this absolutely STUNNING photo of a couple.

I excitedly turned to Dave with my phone in his face and said “I want this to be us, I want to do THIS.” - then down the wedding rabbit hole I went. I soon realized that pretty much all the photos I was in love with of couples on the Isle Of Skye were taken by this photographer - Andrew Rae. I sent him an email a few months later after we fully committed to the idea we were going to elope. Pretty sure I used the words “you perfected every shot we thought could only be possible in fairy tales” . We threw out a date to him, but said we only wanted to do it if he was available - and if not we would change OUR date to when he was available. WELL, he was available for our dream date, right smack dab between our June birthdays.

He was a superhero through the whole planning process from overseas. We found a humanist, a place to stay, we found some epic filmmakers and all of a sudden it was truly happening. Andrew was ready to adventure all over Skye with us crazy Canadians and make our dreams come true.

Here is the slideshow of the wedding day… so you can be as in love with Andrew as we are. (ahhh f*** I can’t embed it - so I will LINK IT HERE )

Since the embedding didn’t work - I did post a few of our fave photos below!

So from there July 2018 on - we embarked on a journey to get this elopement done. There are a TON of vendors just from our elopement (not the after-party back home, we will make a separate post about that later!)

The follow is a list of everyone, other than @andrewraephotographer , I can think of that was one part or another to making this day happen.

CINEMATE FILMS

How can we even ever explain these guys? Simon & Gregg were “introduced” to us by a recommendation from Andrew on our initial Facetime meeting, we clicked on their instagram and were immediately blown away.

At first, we only ever thought of having a photographer - just us, a photographer and the person to marry us. We briefly were trying not to be selfish, and were like “What about our moms? They are gonna wanna see the vows since we did this without them”. We were still hesitant because Andrew truly captures the moment.

Then, we saw our first Cinemate Film, and were like “yeah, we NEED this. We want this, and we are gonna like it more than our moms.” These aren’t your mama’s wedding videos. These are FILMS for the “Enamoured and Adventurous” - and I like to think we are both. We face-timed with Gregg and we had to have them adventure on Skye with us. They totally signed on.

So here we are with these three rad AF Scottish guys about to go on an adventure around Skye. We met the three of them for dinner at The Old Inn in Carbost the night before our elopement, and I felt like I had met my long lost brothers. We laughed, we had a few bevvy’s and met up the next early morning for the big day.

Here is the result of CINEMATE FILMS MAGIC *with a guest cameo by BFF Kaitlin*:

We also got a trailer (SEE IT HERE) , and a full video of our ceremony so we really could show our moms. We were ECSTATIC to have this video as we showed it at the elopement celebration - so everyone could see our epic day. So if you are ever wondering if you need a wedding video, you do. And you need CINEMATE FILMS to make it for you. Simon & Gregg - thank you, you will always be my favourite gazelles. Wait ‘til you hear what I have planned for our next trip…. xo

PENELOPE HAMILTON - HUMANIST CELEBRANT

Jessi hugging the master of ceremonies, Penelope the Humanist

Oh sweet Penelope. She was truly the master of ceremonies. We initially contacted another Humanist who we found on instagram who meshed with our souls, but she was not available - and she gave us a list of names of her pals who may be available, and Penelope was on that list. As soon as we chatted with Penelope we knew she was the one, she was kind and funny and truly warmed our hearts - I am pretty sure I CRIED during our first Skype meeting with her.

She not only helped us craft our entire ceremony to include some traditions and our personal vows to make it truly about us, but she also guided us through the whole paperwork process so we could be legally married in Scotland as Canadians. She trekked through mud, sheep shit, and cliffs to get to our ceremony spot with nothing but excitement for the day. Thank you, Penelope - you will surely never be forgotten.

LYNN AITKEN - SKYE BEAUTY SALON

Lynn is this totally bad ass MUA who is beauty queen boss lady by day and total rockstar by night. And a full time mom on top of that. She was willing to drive like and hour and a half to our cottage at the crack of dawn to get me ready for the day. She was on board with my non-natural makeup as I wanted the full rock and roll boho chic style. Purple eyelids, glam lashes, a jewelled hair crown and of course braided hair.

Thankful I had Lynn to help with my dress

Also, if I didn’t have her, I don’t know if I would have actually gotten my dress done up haha! She fully completed our epic elopement team, and she is a beautiful soul I will never forget with our early morning laughs. Plus she made me feel like a goddess and look like one too. She owns her own salon but is also available to travel for all your wedding & elopement beauty needs. https://www.instagram.com/skyebeautysalon/

AVI NAOR AKA AVI SCRIBBLES


THIS GIRL. She didn’t get to come to Scotland with us, but I probably should have invited her, that is how much I love her. We brought her with us in spirit though. I went to Avi (pronounced Ah-vee) with a super special request for hand-lettering after seeing her work on Instagram (yes Instagram pretty much made my wedding happen!) Avi was just as excited if not more about my jacket from the moment I pitched it to her. So I knew right away that my life-long dream project was in the right hands (literally).

After I dropped off my jacket, we went back and forth over email a few times, nerding out over the letter “S”, stars, and constellations. I went to her home office to pick up my carefully chosen leather jacket, and I was HEAD OVER HEELS in love with it. So much so, when I got back to the car I bawled and I mean hyperventilating-can’t-breathe, ugly crying. I’m even getting teared up RIGHT NOW just remembering the moment in the car proudly showing David my dream wedding jacket and then holding it to my heart like it was my baby.

Avi included a hand-written thank-you card, which of course meant more tears. But really, I owe her thanks. Like eternally grateful thanks. Why? This is why….

HAND-LETTERED CUSTOM JACKET BY AVISCRIBBLES

Avi - you will FOREVER be the raddest calligrapher I will ever know. I proudly wear my HAND-PAINTED by Avi leather jacket as much as I can (F THIS CANADIAN WINTER WEATHER!) I see your work and I want to have MORE weddings so I can have more Avi designs. (Can’t wait for our Christmas Ornament!) Thank you for not judging me because I didn’t want my jacket to say MRS because I think it is an outdated term. Thank you for thinking it was cool I wanted to add our astrology constellation among my stars. Thank you for being so badass - I truly have a huge piece in my heart for you, and I will support you and your designs until the end of time, all the while wearing this jacket until it crumbles into pieces or I am burned into ashes and shot out of a firework. xoxo

(you all should check her out and love her too @aviscribbles)

ALLIANCE BRIDAL OTTAWA

THE DRESS. PERIOD.

Okay, but seriously. I love this place, it is out of town, a house that has been converted into a bridal salon, and has been open for years upon years. This dress was the FOURTH dress I tried on. I only loved one other dress, but it wasn’t a Scotland dream dress. I didn’t go anywhere else. I brought my BFF Kaitlin (one of two people that knew about the elopement!) and she isn’t really emotional but she pretty much cried when I had this dress on - so that’s huge.

The ladies here are amazing, they cater to all brides of all sizes and shapes and they altered my dress perfectly. I never once felt rushed, judged, or pressured to buy anything. They listened. They gave me my dream dress by Ashley & Justin Bride (style #10461)


SURMESUR OTTAWA

THE SUIT! THE BOWMORE CUSTOM SUIT!

Such a cool place to get a custom suit. You get measurements then you pick materials from swatches and build your suit on design software on a computer. Oh and they have scotch. That pretty much sold us. Thank you to Ottawa team Kayla, Mercedes and Todd for making a suit custom fit David, giving him a dram of scotch - and did we mention it was lined with official BOWMORE fabric? Pretty cool - plus now that they have his measurements I can just log in to the website and order more fancy clothes for him!

DOROTHY MORRISON - ISLE OF SKYE HOLIDAY COTTAGES

We found this sweet little Munro Cottage on Booking.com (only later to find out we could have booked directly with her - so I definitely recommend doing that if you can!) It is literally built into a hillside (a munro), windows all the way around, a huge deck overlooking the water and mountains. Oh and Talisker Distillery. Pretty damn cool. We contacted Dorothy right away to ask permission to have our crew there for photos and getting ready - and she was very enthusiastic about the whole thing.

Dorothy owns a few cottages and she makes you really feel at home. Please check her homes out on the Isle of Skye if you are ever thinking of travelling there. http://www.isle-of-skye-holiday-cottages.co.uk/Cottages

ALSO FEATURED:

AAHHH I hope I didn’t leave anyone or anything out for our magical Isle of Skye Elopement.

Of course, huge hugs and love to Gigi - my (Jessi’s) mom - she knew about the elopement ahead of time and stayed with our baby girl and kitties back home the whole time we were gone. Takin’ care of our baby so we could do something so meaningful is probably one of the most important things that made this all possible.

*also note - none of these links are sponsored or affiliate links - I just wanted to make sure to spread the love and give credit to those who deserve it!


We did have a post-elopement party back in Ottawa last month, so we will probably post about that once we get all the photos from our back-home photographer!


If you made it this far - thanks for reading about the most dreamy day either of us have ever had! We truly have NO REGRETS. Everything was perfect (except why didn’t it rain on my wedding day in Scotland #maybenexttime?) The paperwork and application wasn’t even that hard - just a lot of it!

Be wild and make it about you.

All our love & thank you to everyone <3

PS - I promise to update this if I remember anything else #adhdbrain ;)