May 21, 2005 – A Scottish Wedding in Kilsyth, 2003

May 21, 2005 – A Scottish Wedding in Kilsyth, 2003

The last major event of our stay in Scotland during the weeks of August 3rd and August 10th of 2003 was the wedding of IM’s nephew, MS to his long time significant other LS. I’ve known MS and his younger sister LR since they were both children. IM and I met them during our first trip back to Scotland to introduce our daughter ME, then barely two years old to her Scottish relatives. IM’s brother WS was marrying YS with her two young children who were close in age to the two children MS and LS have at the time of their wedding. I find comfort in this sort of symmetry. Both couples would have civil marriage ceremonies not a more serious church wedding. IM and I watched MS grow in jumps as our visits were typically every fourth year. We saw the shy pre-teen; the moody teenager; the young man getting married for the first time—it didn’t last; the young man confronting and overcoming a serious medical condition—as a celebration of his victory, he ran the Glasgow Marathon; the moving in with LS as the two set up housekeeping together; the birth of their first born—an adorable young son; the birth of their spirited beautiful younger daughter; and now their marriage: a half a lifetime in fast forward.

It is Saturday morning August 16th and IM and I had just returned from our trip to the Isle of Skye. WS had retrieved my rented kilt along with his own from the clothier in Sterling where we had hired them earlier that week on Monday. WS was wearing the Millennium Tartan, I the Royal Stewart. The Millennium Tartan is the color of new grown grass; with dark vertical and horizontal stripes that frame squares of green. In this checkerboard pattern, every fourth square contains a field of light purple, the color of heather—that grows abundantly in Scotland, especially in the Highlands. Completing his kilt ensemble was a darker green vest; white high collar shirt and matching green bow tie and short tuxedo-style green waistcoat with tails; white kilt hose with Sgian Dubh (the knife originally hidden in the hose) and Ghillie Brogues—shoes provided as part of the kilt rental; and a sporran—purse or pouch hung from around the waist to carry articles otherwise found in pockets.

My kilt was the Royal Stewart Tartan, my wife’s IM’s clan tartan. The dominant color is rose red with two dark grey vertical and horizontal stripes an inch in width separated by a red stripe an inch or wider in width. Down the middle of each vertical and horizontal stripe are two very thin stripes separated by narrow stripe of dark gray. One of the thin stripes is red the other varying colors. Along the top of the uppermost and along the bottom of the lowermost gray horizontal bar is a thin blue stripe. The rightmost and leftmost gray vertical bars have the same thin blue line. Collectively these gray vertical and horizontal bars frame squares of red around the entire kilt. The result is the Royal Stewart Tartan, which I wore with black waistcoat, bow tie, and vest. A real Scotsman does not wear underwear with his kilt. That was made clear in a photograph of the Scottish Black Watch Soldier shown lowering the British Standard from Government House—the official residence of Hong Kong's British governors—during the handover of Hong Kong to China: a gust of wind lifting his kilt to reveal his left buttocks.

The wedding was to take place at Colzium House in the town of Kilsyth. Colzium House was originally built in 1783 with a newer addition in 1861. In 1930, Town Clerk W Mackay Lennox bought the estate and when he retired deeded the property to Kilsyth Burgh, now part of North Lanarkshire, in memory of his Mother. Architecturally the structure mixes traditional Scottish with the more modern Renaissance. Colzium House has a long curving driveway to its main entrance. The facility consisted of a great hall that resembled the inside of a medieval castle: polished light colored wooden floor, high ceilings and crests and coats of arms decorating the walls. Adjacent the great hall on the right was the new addition where the wedding ceremony would occur in the presence of a Scottish lady, equivalent of an American Justice of the Peace.

The groom’s mother YS wore a beige pants suit while IM wore a pastel green dress both perfect for this bright, warm summer Saturday. We all jumped into the hired Mercedes limo for the short drive to the Colzium House in the town of Kilsyth. As we drove up the long curving driveway to the main entrance of the estate, you got the impression of visiting a Scottish nobleman’s estate—the horse drawn carriage conveyance of the past replaced by a fancy automobile. We were not the first to arrive at the entrance of the main hall. Others already assembled were awaiting the arrival of the bridge and groom. The groom arrived first with his best man and was swarmed by well wishers shaking his hand and slapping him on the back in congratulations. When the bride arrived, the scene repeated with all the little girls swooning over the bride’s flowing white wedding dress. Her two accompanying maids of honor—both her sisters—wore lavender dresses.

The side of the great hall—where the guests would assemble for dinner after the wedding and dancing later in the evening—fronted a large manicured lawn, about half the length of and as wide as a football field. It was surrounded by flowering shrubs and trees with an occasional tree within the field of green. After the greetings of bride and groom by the entrance concluded, everyone drifted over to the lawn following the bride and groom who were being ushered there by a tall thin photographer dressed in green tartan and black waistcoat, vest, and tie. He was the husband of one of the bride’s many sisters. He wielded a Nikon single-lens reflex digital camera with a Nikon lens large enough to accommodate a wide range of shots. He had been practicing on his children and the children of other guests. The resulting shots show a collection of kids, frolicking about an open expanse of green lawn: each child alone or in a group caught with an expression of glee, excitement, or playful mischievousness. When the bride and groom and their families made their way to the lawn, the photographer turned his attention to the adults.

Shot against the green landscape, the groom’s son, father, and best man all dressed handsomely in kilts produced a shot right out of a Scottish past. The picture was brought into more modern times as mother, aunt and I joined the picture. The photographer repeated the process for the bride and her family, mom and sisters all beaming with the same excitement that was so clearly evident in the face of the bride. Posing the various groupings of the bride’s and groom’s family took time to set up and the candid shots he took of the process were more engaging than the posed pictures: the groom’s mom slapping her right leg at a joke made at her expense, a contrived expression aimed at the photographer by a maid of honor hamming the camera. As the last of the photos were taken, the guests began to make their way to the new addition of Colzium House where one of the larger rooms had been set with chairs for guests and a small area open set for the lady justice and the bride and groom to carry out the ceremony.

When the time came for bride and groom to make their way to the wedding ceremony after the guests had entered the new addition, the photographer led the way capturing the bride and her two maids of honor as they walk up the path, bride in the middle a maid on honor on each side. Inside the new addition, once everyone was seated the ceremony completed, followed by the cutting of the cake, the photographer kept taking shots throughout. In one sequence of shots, the bride cuts the cake in one frame, looks at the camera and smiles in the next, leans in to receive a kiss on the forehead from her new husband in the third, and finally both look up at the camera in the last. The wedding party then filed out of the new addition and made their way into the great hall set up with rows of round tables from front to back. One long table along the wall looked out of four equally spaced narrow tall windows onto the lawn where everyone was being photographed earlier.

Before the meal service begins, the photographer captures the groom and best man each standing in turn and addressing the assembled throng of well wishers: two happy men each expressing their thoughts and feelings about this moment in time. Then the meal service begins with an announcement made by the head of the catering staff, a tall Scottish woman with a strong voice that carried the length of the hall. She announced the meal and what time the evening reception would begin. By now the sun has begun to warm the great hall and all the men shed their heavy waistcoats.

After the meal completes, the guests assemble outside for more picture taking and visiting. The photographer’s pictures taken during this interval of the day show the happy couple wandering about the enormous lawn, arms around one another, marital bliss—not bad for a couple that have lived together for over a decade and have two lovely children, their older son entering middle school. The groom is a dead wringer for George Clooney and the bride is a brown-haired beauty with a cherubic face that always seems to smile. They have a story to tell these two but I’m not the one to tell it.

The photographer’s pictures next show the group reassembled in the great hall, which has been set for dancing, tables along the wall, a bar near the entrance, and a disc jockey at the opposite end encouraging everyone to get up and dance. Most of evening’s dances are the typical ones you hear at any wedding, but as the night wears on, the disk jockey occasionally plays a Scottish folk song and everyone breaks into the folk dance associated with the music. The alcohol accompanying the festivities was making the dancers better or clouding my judgment. I suspect both. I seem to recall the disc jockey playing “I Belong to Glasgow,” to which everyone sang along including me. The photographer sent me a disk with all his pictures a week after IM and I arrived back in the states. I took every one of his pictures, the product of a great eye, and I turned them into a Quicktime movie set to the music of Celine Dion singing “My Heart Will Go On.” The bride was pleased.