Sarah Turner and Jonathan Bremner didn’t let lockdown get in way of them saying their vows to each other on Tuesday. The couple’s original plan was told get married at an Aberdeen church with 90 day guests and then another 50 arriving for the evening. However, due to the ongoing coronavirus lockdown rules, this was deemed impossible, so the pair decided to mark their wedding date with a video ceremony – through video platform Zoom.
Sarah told the Dumfries Courier: “After the lockdown was announced we spoke with our minister Andy Hayes and he agreed to conduct a Christian marriage over Zoom with our friends and family tuning in from their own homes. “There were 42 families who managed to join us for the ceremony which was very bizarre as we were in our own flat ourselves and only connected with other people through the Zoom call.”
She added: “We had the ceremony early evening as my maid of honour and bridesmaid both work for the NHS so we wanted to work around their shifts so they were still able to join. It made for a weird morning stuck in the house before getting ready. My dress is still with my parents so I had to get a last minute dress delivered and altered before our virtual ceremony but Jonathan still wore his kilt!”
The newlyweds – who now live in Aberdeen – met through volunteer work and were set-up by two friends. They got engaged in March 2019 and spent most of the last year planning the wedding. “We had nearly everything organised by Christmas with just a few things to put in place in the last couple of months. Jonathan was very involved in the planning,” said bride Sarah. “Included in the planning we met with Oro Distillery at Dalton to create our very own gin to celebrate our marriage. There were a lot of journeys up and down from Aberdeen to Dumfries as my maid of honour and bridesmaid, as well as family, all still live in Dumfries.”
After the streamed ceremony, Sarah and Jonathan held a private Zoom video chat with their parents where they had a wedding meal together before cutting the cake and enjoying their first dance.
The happy couple still plan to get legally married later in the year when hopefully the lockdown is lifted. “It was a surreal, amazing, unique day where we were able to celebrate on our original wedding date with our Christian marriage,” Sarah said. “This now gives us two anniversaries to celebrate our marriage.”
Photo by Babe in the Woods Media
