Nicole and Craig’s wedding was a love letter to their Aberdeenshire farming background with tables named after cattle, a tractor backdrop for group photos and local produce on the menu
Nicole Morrison & Craig Hendry
23rd July 2022
Venue | Botriphnie Church and groom’s family farm, Aberdeenshire
Photography | Jade Esson Photography
“Craig and I were together 10 years before he finally proposed in October 2018. We were on a big family holiday to Salou.
We had originally started planning our wedding and booking suppliers for 17th July 2020, but then Covid hit. At that point, we had booked our marquee, caterer and toilets. We eventually rearranged for our date for July 2022, roughly four years after we got engaged.
We knew we wanted to have our reception at home on Craig’s family farm. We enlisted the services of a local marquee company, Grant Tent Hire, and they were brilliant. In order to get the best backdrop, we planned to pitch the marquee quite far from the farm entrance, but this posed a problem. We didn’t want guests walking on grass getting dirty feet, or high heels sinking into the ground if it was raining. After many discussions, we decided to build a brand-new path all the way up to the marquee.
We originally budgeted approximately £20,000 for our wedding, but I think we went a fair bit over. We had 120 day guests with another 130 in the evening.
We wanted to have a feature piece where they could take photos at. Craig made an arch out of steel and had a work colleague cut out the lettering ‘The Hendrys’ that he welded to the top of the arch. We’re going to put it in our garden.
We used a lot of brilliant local Aberdeenshire suppliers. My wedding dress was from Avorio Bridal in Fochabers, the bridesmaid dresses from Angharad Bridal in Elgin, and Craig got his attire from the excellent and accommodating Mitchell Scott in Inverurie.
Our caterer A & J Catering included a lot of Aberdeenshire produce in our menu too. We served local haggis, roast Aberdeenshire sirloin of beef and locally grown strawberries.
Craig grew up on the farm and showed cattle from an early age. Cows have been a big part of his life, so we named our tables after different cattle breeds.
We are both really laid-back people, so we left a lot of the planning until quite late in the day. The two to three weeks before the wedding were pretty stressful to be honest. We were up to midnight most nights tidying up the farm, doing wedding DIY, trying to organise the table plan and more… even the evening before there were still things to sort!
Our photographer Jade Esson is my sister’s sister-in-law. We had already used her multiple times to capture family pictures, so it was a no-brainer to book her for our wedding. Her and second shooter Nicola Stewart worked so well together and put everyone at ease.
Craig wasn’t sold on the idea of a videographer initially, but he was persuaded eventually. Conor Ross Media was fantastic. Being able to watch your big day over again, and seeing everyone having such a good time, is something we will never regret.
Our biggest bargain was our ‘fake’ wedding cake. We were quoted around £500 for a wedding cake, but it was one aspect we decided we weren’t bothered about.
Instead, I ordered a three-tier polystyrene cake online for £13 and asked my sister (who is an excellent baker) to make a large fruit cake for the bottom tier. Her and my bridesmaid decorated it so brilliantly, you’d have never known most of it wasn’t real!
I used to go to Botriphnie Church for Sunday school with my Nana when I was growing up, so I always knew I wanted to get married there. Minister Wiekus Van Straaten gave a great service which was light, cheeky and had the congregation laughing.
The speeches were lovely. Craig got quite emotional when doing his and when he said how proud he was of both our kids (Millie, aged nine, and Riley, aged four), Riley got up and left the marquee, not in the slightest bit interested in the nice things his dad had to say about him. That made us laugh!”
Top tip: “If you are having a marquee wedding, consider where you place the important elements. The only thing we slightly regretted was having our bar at the opposite end to the dancefloor which caused a bit of a divide.”
Ceremony venue Botriphnie Church
Reception venue Marquee on family farm
Photography Jade Esson Photography
Second photographer Nicola Stewart Photography
Marquee and furniture hire Grant Tent Hire
Bride’s dress Avorio Bridal
Bridesmaid dresses Angharad Bridal
Flower girl dresses JJ’s House
Hair and makeup Shears Hair and Beauty
Bride’s nails T.M. Beauty Keith
Groomswear Mitchell Scott
Catering A & J Catering
Cake DIY ‘fake’ cake
Flowers Ivy and Bloom Florist
Favours Whisky and vodka miniatures
Filmmaker Conor Ross Media
Reception band Callanish
