Before we start, let me give you a little history of how all this came about.  Back in August of 1999, we had decided to go to Paris for the Millennium with a short side trip to London.  Little did I know what Katie had in store for us!  We (?) figured this was a trip of a lifetime and decided that it would be a perfect place to get married.  By this time, it was the end of November.  As it turned out, there was a little more to it than that.  France has a 30 day residency requirement, so that meant we would have to find another place nearby to get married.  I went on the Internet fulltime (literally 8 hours a day or more!) to find a country that didn't have any restrictions and would be legal in the US.  Some of the requirements were crazy.  For example, Luxembourg had a 6 month waiting period!  After checking every Consulate in Europe, we had two choices:  Italy and Scotland.  These were the only two that didn't have any residency requirements.  Even though we probably wouldn't be able to understand either one of the ceremonies, we decided on Scotland.

That was just the beginning.  I now had only a few weeks to put the whole thing together!  Back to the Internet!  I think I found every website there was about Scotland during my search.  We knew we wanted to get married in a castle or Abbey, so now it was a matter of finding that along with a Minister, etc., etc.  After sorting through all the information, we decided on 2 places.  The first was Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness.  It is a ruin that was built out on the lake.  The other was Linlithgow Palace just outside Edinburgh.  This was also a ruin and is where Mary, Queen of Scots was born.  Flying into Edinburgh was relatively easy; however, getting to Loch Ness would prove to be a little more difficult.  It is about 4 1/2 hours from Edinburgh, which was the closest major town that we could fly into.  I called the visitors bureau in Edinburgh get help and they made a few good suggestions, including the fact that it was winter and that in the Highlands where Loch Ness was located, it could get very cold.  Since the castle was a ruin and was relatively remote, it would also be very difficult to make back-up plans.  In addition, if the weather was really bad, it would be difficult just to get there in the first place.  Linlithgow seemed like the logical choice at this point.  I contacted them and they said that it would be no problem and they had a small hall where we could have the ceremony inside the castle.

At this point, I realized this could get out of hand very easily and there was a good chance something would go wrong if things weren't planned just perfectly.  I finally starting seeing websites for wedding coordinators in Scotland and decided that might be the best resource for trying to get  some these details finalized.  I contacted a company called Scottish Wedding Consultants in Edinburgh to see about helping with the arrangements.  As it turns out, this was a real blessing.  Yvonne (the owner) went over to Linlithgow and took pictures and emailed them to me to see.  She wasn't sure that would be our best option.  The room where we would have the ceremony was very small and dark and not very "castle-like".  Okay, back to the drawing board.  She recommended a few places she had used in the past.  They were all nice and we almost decided on a small private castle when I came upon a website for Rosslyn Chapel.  What a perfect place!  It is just outside of Edinburgh and seemed to have a very rich history.  Yvonne went there and took pictures to email me.  It seemed like the place we wanted to get married.  Katie loved it at first site!

Okay, we now had the chapel.  Whoa!  Hold on!  It seems that they don't perform that many ceremonies in the first place and were skeptical about letting tourists get married there.  They didn't want to turn it into a wedding chapel.  I couldn't blame them because they were spending a great deal on restoration and wanted to keep it what is was, a historic site.  Finally, after some convincing from Yvonne, they agreed.  Whew!  Now the hard part was behind us.  Yvonne helped us with a minister, a piper, the flowers, etc.  Everything fell into place from there.

Thought the wedding plans were hard, the plane tickets were even worse!  Because we were using frequent flyer miles to fly first class to Paris, we were subject to those good 'ol blackout rules.  Paris was already locked in and paid for, so there was no way to change those plans.  Poor Margaret, our travel agent!  Between me calling US Airways and her trying to coordinate travel within Europe, it was a mess.  I bet we revised the travel at least 10 times.  You know, we went to London last year during New Years and had to leave on Christmas day.  Well, guess what?  That's right!  We had to leave on Christmas day again!  We would fly into London, catch a plane to Edinburgh, get married, hop a plane to Paris, take a train to London and then back to Paris.  All done now?  Not on your life!

How did Rome come into all of this?  Well, that was one of the options as a place to get married, so I had checked into flights there.  Somehow, we managed to add that onto the end to finish our travels.  What was a few more days, another flight, more travel arrangements and another bottle of Advil?  So now it was:  leave Christmas day to fly to London, arrive the next morning after flying all night, hop another plane to Edinburgh, get married, fly back to London, catch another plane to Paris, take the Chunnel to London, back to Paris, fly to Rome and finally back home.  Whew!  I'm tired just from typing all that!  If you want to see a copy of our itinerary with all of the details, click here.

Now that we're back, I wouldn't trade it for the world.  It was amazing how smoothly everything went.  We even managed to catch earlier flights, get upgraded everywhere we went and generally had great weather considering the time of year.  At least something was easy!

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These are pictures of Rosslyn Chapel where we got married. It was built in 1446 by Sir William St. Clair, Prince of Orkney. It was originally a Masonic church and in 1592, during the Reformation of the Roman Catholics, it was ordered that the church be destroyed. Miraculously, it was not and remained closed until 1650, when it was used as a horse stable for the troops of General Cromwell of England. It again remained abandoned until 1736. Repairs were made over a period of over a hundred years and the Chapel was finally was rededicated in 1862. The chapel has been open ever since. We were only the 308th couple to be married there in over 500 years!

Another interesting piece of history and folklore related to the chapel is the story of the Apprentice Pillar. In those days, for an apprentice to earn his "stripes", he had to prove himself to the Master Mason. Apparently, the Master Mason had to go to Italy and left his apprentices to carve the church's pillars. When he returned, instead of finding a pillar similar to the others in the chapel, he found the very ornate and unusual pillar you see to your right. He became so enraged with jealousy, he killed the apprentice right in front of the pillar he had just completed. To this day the Master Mason is tortured with having to look at the apprentice's work, as his head was carved into the masonry facing the pillar. You can also find the head of the apprentice complete with the gash given to him by the Master as well!

At The Hotel

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I still had to get all the legal stuff done, so Yvonne and I went to the Magistrates office while Katie had the hotel staff help her get ready.  We had to go to a small town outside of Edinburgh to the Magistrates Office.  We got all the papers signed and everything was ready to go.  We were gone about an hour and a half and when we got back it was my turn to get ready.  Remember, I haven't seen the wedding dress yet.  So anyway, I got ready and went down to the lobby to wait for Katie.  These are some of the pictures:

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The wedding was spectacular to say the least! The weather was perfect considering it was the middle of winter. I surprised Katie with a 1956 Rolls Royce to the chapel. I told her earlier we had to take a cab since we didn't have any other way to get there. When we arrived at Rosslyn Chapel, we were greeted by Iain, our Piper, who played us into the church. The ceremony was grand, even though it was only the two of us, the Minister and our witnesses (one was the wedding coordinator, Yvonne and the other was our photographer, Walter). It was rather chilly in the Chapel, so as we said our vows, you could see our breath! After the ceremony, Iain, our Piper toasted us beside The Apprentice Pillar with a traditional Scottish wedding toast. This really was a once in a lifetime experience. To get married in Scotland over the Millennium and in such a historic place was unbelievable.

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After we left the chapel, we decided to go to Calton Hill, which overlooks Edinburgh, for a few more pictures. This crag is where the city has put its monuments and observatory. There is even a memorial to the Scottish soldiers that fought in the American Civil War that looks just like the Washington Monument. Also on the hill, is a replica of the Parthenon that was started in the mid 1800's that was never completed (the city ran out of money!), as well as a tower in honor of Sir Frances Scott that appears prominently in these pictures (it's a telescope turned upside down). Also, if you look carefully in the background, you can see a clock tower of the Balmoral Hotel where we stayed. In addition, you can see the Castle, the Royal Mile and several other landmarks in Edinburgh. I do have to mention that it was probably 20 degrees colder on the hill, so needless to say, we didn't stay long!

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Listen to the wedding music!