This weekend I wanted to be Scottish.
(Even though my grandfather was, it's pretty piss poor lineage to claim full Scotsmanship, but it did go far enough that my bridey friend said I was more Scottish than her as her relatives aren't Scots. Am also 8000% more Scottish than my Brit. Who is pure, unbloodied English back as far as his first ancestor. If that counts for anything. )
I digress. Scottish people have the best weddings.
I don't think you quite understand.
We might have bouquet throwing (which they don't seem to do), but they have a first and a last dance, and they have the most dramatic music you've ever heard. It's amaaazing. And it made me cry like a baby.
I usually cry at weddings anyway - when the bride comes down the aisle, you can feel the nerves, excitement, love, the overwhelming emotions flying everywhere. Hell, I cried down the aisle as I walked towards the Brit.
The Scots tend to infuse dramatic music into their wedding throughout the day. First there was a man playing bagpipes, surrounded by men decked out in kilts (The Brit was a minority in his pant suit).
No seriously. One might think a bagpipe melody makes you want to stuff your earlobes with Bose surround sound, but actually, it was just perfect. He was stood, in the baking sunshine, in all his finery - red tartan cape, velvet jacket, the woolly socks, kilt, basically gear that makes you sweat. And played us all a little song.
The thing Scots do at weddings is ceilidh dancing. (Pronounced kay-lee.) It's just the most ridiculous fun you'll ever have. Everyone stands in a line and does that sort of Cotton Eye Joe dancing together, with lots of clapping hands and spinning around to traditional music. You do a bunch of these throughout the night, and I was literally in heaven.
I love organised group dancing. Specially after a few drinks. It's like the time I went to an old Irish bar in Dublin, and they shut the doors and everyone started breaking it down to the music baby. Irish dancing is more haphazard and you kind of just dance with everyone, whereas ceilidh is more structured. Same kind of vibe though.
The Celts know how to get everyone involved, and it's through the medium of dance. Why can't us Anglophiles do the same?
It goes a little something like this.
Then, as a final touch, at the end of everything, the bride and groom have a final dance. Everyone stands around them in a circle, holding hands. Only one song is used, the 'Loch Lomond.' (Apparently a lovely looking loch, written about in songs and poems for centuries).
And it's all very beautiful, and everyone sings and moves in the circle.
Can't we get married again and have a Scottish wedding please?
Edinburgh is beautiful, by the way. And it was so sunny, I even got a bit of a tan on ye olde face.
I tried doing the accent all weekend, but no one was overly impressed. ("Bot I doonae what's ye is tokkin aboot!")
Lots of dudes playing bagpipes in kilts on every corner though, that gets slightly a bit much.
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