Wedding Marquee Dumfries – Real Weddings Blog

Stuart and Angie Burgess got married in a marquee from Queensberry Events on their farm in New Abbey, in Dumfries and Galloway, on May 21, 2016. They are now looking forward to the birth of their first child, due on their first wedding anniversary!

Wedding romance…

S: We were at school together. The first time I ever met Angie was when her mum was dropping her brother off at cubs but we didn’t speak to each other – we were about seven or eight. Then we were at secondary school together.

A: We got together at our friend’s wedding in 2014.

Local attractions…

S: We wanted something that was quite personal to us. We are right next to Sweetheart Abbey, and Criffel, so it was like a ready-made site for a marquee.

A: We found that locally, the venues are quite small and split into different rooms, so we thought it would be nice to keep everyone all together and then nobody would miss out on any chats throughout the night. We thought it would be nice to have it at home and outside. It was in the field behind the cottage, and you can see Sweetheart Abbey, Waterloo Monument and Criffel so it’s a really nice background for it.

Path to true love…

A: We had 120 people through the day and another 100 at night, so we got a 12x30m marquee with a wooden floor, with clear walls along the front and along one side, so you can see the monument, Criffel, the Abbey and the fields.

S: We had a path from the field gateway to the marquee door lit up with festoon lights so people knew where to go, and the path was lined with pro-floor to stop muddy shoes and heels sinking into the grass – it did a great job as it had been so wet the day before.

Picture perfect…

A: We got married down at Southwick Church at 1pm, then went to Carsethorn, where I’m from and got some pictures done down on the beach, came here and got a few in front of Sweetheart Abbey, and then headed to the marquee for the meal.

Helping hands…

A: We had some help from friends and we had help from my friend Hannah Jamieson, who owns a company called Silver Events she came and did the tables and all the napkins, and brought us a lovely postbox to put all our mail in. We did the table decorations by ourselves. For the table centrepieces we got my bridesmaid’s husband to cut up little logs and we got little baby-size green wellies and filled them with flowers from Donna Craig at Darling Buds in Castle Douglas. The wellies came in handy because we gave them to some of the kids afterwards!

Getting creative…

A: We had the marquee from the Wednesday to the Monday which gave us a day or two before the wedding to get everything set up.

S: Because it’s a marquee it’s a bit more work for yourself, but it’s as much work as as you wanted it to be, really.

A: On the morning of your wedding, decorating is the last thing you want to be thinking about. It was so good to have the extra time. We were still in it the night before though – I think we could have got carried away and went on forever!

S: It was quite handy that the marquee was still there on the day after the wedding so we had a BBQ.

wedding marquee dumfries – half carpeted/barrels

 

 

Planning made easy…

A: Will [Duncan of Queensberry Events] had some templates on his website that we looked at, so that was good. That helped us decide where we were going to put the tables. We had the bar area in the marquee itself, so we got his whisky barrels for people when they were standing at the bar – that worked really well. The Steamboat Inn from Carsethorn did the bar and they did a great job!

Sample Size and Layout plans

12 x 42 Marquee

Marquee size guide

12 x 18 Marquee

Natural and rustic…

A: Everything was quite rustic. We did our invites by ourselves with craft card and Stuart’s tartan on it, the Douglas tartan. The flowers were things like thistles. The style wasn’t exactly “thrown together”, but nothing was perfect. We had bunting round the edge of the marquee and big milk churns at the entrance.

S: It was kind of farmery, with the wellies on the tables.

Dress to impress…

A: Colour-wise, our bridemaids were in pink and the napkins on the tables were tied with pink bows, and the flower girls had gold sequenced dresses on. My dress was gold underneath with an ivory overlay from Charlotte Boyd.

S: We rented our Blue Arrochar tweed jackets and Modern Douglas tartan kilts from Stewart Highland Falkirk.

A: Our wedding date was actually picked by when my make-up artist was free! Hannah Mason did my make-up and Sonya McQueen at the White House Hair Salon did my hair.

Almost blown away…

A: The weather the whole of the night before couldn’t have been any worse, it was awful. It was so windy, it was blowing a gale.

S: The next morning I was awake at 4am and up checking the marquee, but there was nothing to worry about – it was absolutely fine. And then the weather came good and it was sunny!

A: It turned out to be a beautiful day.

Good food and great beats…

S: The Green Tea Room did the catering for the main meal. Angie’s mum did a massive evening buffet and she also made the cake – she has her own cafe in Dalbeattie called DeCaff.

A: We had a band called Fortebeat, from Airdrie, and they were great. We were so lucky to find them. We got engaged on September 1, and the week after that we went on holiday and literally spent the whole week planning because we knew we wanted to do it quite quickly, with us being into shows with the horses and cows etc, so we wanted to have it before show season. All the bands we knew were already booked so we went to a night at the Lochside House Hotel where Fortebeat were showcasing and just booked them that night because they were so good.

S: They did a great range of music from all the eras. I don’t think they had played in a marquee before but they had such a good time they played for an extra hour and the place was bouncing! Everybody was up dancing.

Paradise for kids…

A: It was great for the kids – they were playing in the long grass with the sashes off the end of the pews at the church, using them as ribbons. It was lovely to get photos of that. You didn’t need to worry about them, you could see them all the time through the windows.

Plotting the future…
S: We would definitely recommend a marquee wedding, there was something that was just so nice about getting it ready for the wedding.

A: It did exactly what we wanted – it kept everyone together. We have had quite a few people come and say to us how much they loved our wedding that are now getting married, and they are looking into marquee weddings as well, but they are not as lucky as us to have a plot on our back doorstep!

What we actually hired from Queensberry Event Hire:
12x30m Queensberry Wedding Marquee French Doors, suspended wooden flooring throughout, Ivory roof, wall and pole linings, 42m of panoramic clear walls with 3 Montreux chandeliers on dimmer controls. And fairy light canopy over dance floor. Two 30kva generators; luxury toilet block, 6x6m cater tent, 160 chiavari chairs, 16 5.6ft round tables, 2 lime wash bar units, 10 6ft tables, PA system, space heater, 100m pro floor, 25 shepherds hooks, 100m of festoon lights

Blog: Claire Henderson