Two brides, one quaich of gin, and rings warmed by every hand in the room.
A five o'clock Friday ceremony at The Bothy, tucked down the cobbles of Ruthven Lane in the West End — candlelight on stone and timber, two brides both looking absolutely stunning, and a room small enough that every single guest got to hold the wedding rings before they went on. Intimate, funny, and completely them.
Their story
Only two teachers could start a love story with a Facebook message about maths worksheets. A mutual pal sent Gill some resources and added, "my friend Emily is about to start at your school — look after her!" Gill's response — "she's a Politics teacher, I know nothing about politics" — and she promptly ignored the whole thing. It was the pupils who called it: you two have the exact same sense of humour. The kids, as ever, were right. What sealed it was the discovery that they were the last two people in the world still watching Neighbours — from there via lockdown quizzes, Covid walks, and Rugby World Cup tickets, friendship quietly turned into something more. A "three-week trial" of living together began in January 2022. Emily never moved out. Then came Rome, a four-week American odyssey, and Emily dragging Gill round half the US Presidential Libraries — not bad for someone who couldn't stand politics.
The proposal
Neither of them wanted to be the one not proposing — so they didn't choose. They picked their rings together, waited for Easter Sunday (Emily's roast lamb is non-negotiable), and proposed to each other at home over dinner, finishing with strawberry tarts from Eusebi's. No fuss, no drama, no audience. As Gill puts it: "Go big or go home? Always home."
The ceremony
We opened with a wedding band warming — the rings passed through every pair of hands in the room, each guest adding their own quiet wishes, with two heads of security appointed to make sure they came back ("these are NOT wedding favours"). I shared the couple's "secrets": Gill's allergy to writing anything in a diary, and Emily's Aberdonian refusal to throw anything out — including a rhubarb gin that has been stewing for five years and counting. The quaich held gin too, a compromise Emily graciously accepted despite her case for a heavily peated whisky. Then the vows, the declarations required by Scots law, rings warmed by the whole room — and I had the joy of pronouncing them wife and wife. Sarah from Joy Story caught it all on camera.
Marrying at The Bothy yourself?
Ruthven Lane is the West End at its best — cobbles, fairy lights, and a restaurant that turns into the cosiest ceremony room in Glasgow. My advice from the front of the room: The Bothy suits smaller weddings where everyone can be part of the ritual — a quaich or a ring warming works beautifully at this scale — and a Friday teatime ceremony rolls straight into dinner without anyone moving a chair. This is my home turf: the West End of Glasgow, where I live and work — and for more ideas, my guide to what happens at a humanist wedding.