A music-loving couple from Strichen got hitched at this year’s Belladrum festival returning to the place where it all began.
Not many weddings start with a ceremony in a chapel, a piper in a bucket hat and end with a live performance from Bastille.
But for the new Mr and Mrs Weaver it marked the perfect day with a nod to the past -and they could not be Happier.
After being together for 23 years, Sarah Cordiner, now Weaver, and her husband Dennis Weaver tied the knot at Belladrum Temple on Friday, July 28.
While a music festival may seem a little bit of a different venue for some, Mrs Weaver said it held a lot of fond memories.
Engaged in rain macs in the pouring rain
The couple first met at Mr Weaver’s birthday party in 2000. Mrs Weaver was attending with her cousin and was soon swayed by Mr Weaver’s dancing skills.
Both big music fans, they have been together ever since and have attended Belladrum festival together nearly every year since it first began in 2004.
A year after their first time attending and accompanied by their oldest daughter Skye in a buggy, Mr Weaver proposed.
Mrs Weaver, 41, said: “He popped the question down at the Garden Stage in the pouring rain with water running off our noses wearing macs. It was ace.”
However it turned out to be a longer engagement than they expected.
The mum-of-two said: “We’ve been putting it off because we needed a new house or the kids needed something or a new motorbike.
“Then I lost my mum sadly a couple of years ago and all she wanted was for us to get married and Dennis’s parents are getting older so we thought we needed to do it now.
“Dennis had the girls at Belladrum last year, I didn’t go last year and I decided while they were away I was going to book a wedding.
“I emailed and got the ball rolling before they even got through the door.”
The newlyweds enjoyed a ceremony with 40 friends and family at Belladrum Temple before moving to the champagne and Pimms bar.
They then spent the night singing along to Bastille and other bands on the main stage with another “25,000 wedding guests”.
Groom’s parents attended in mobility scooters
The nail technician said they were very grateful to everyone who came and made the day special.
Especially their piper Connor who was suited and booted in Bermuda shorts and a bucket hat.
“Dennis’s mum and dad were there in mobility scooters,” said Mrs Weaver. “They would have been there through anything – it was brilliant. I had an empty chair for my mum so everybody was there.
“We were really lucky, we had a lot of friends who travelled a long way to be with us.
“Dennis was very emotional and when me and the girls were walking from the caravan, every second person who went past said ‘congratulations’.
“I got a couple of ‘don’t do it’ but I didn’t listen.
“We were thinking of the absent friends and family who couldn’t be there and had a toast to them.”
Mrs Weaver said they also had a party planned in Strichen in two weeks for her gran and others who could not make the ceremony.
