On the number 23 bus out of Braehead, he told her he liked her trainers.

Their story

This love story starts on a bus. A cold December night in 2013, the number 23 from Braehead back to Erskine. Amy had been at Xscape with a crowd of girls from school for a birthday, and they were heading home for a sleepover, piled onto the back of the bus, gossiping and giggling. Ross, a Govan boy, got on with his Erskine pals. He did not know any of the girls. He spotted Amy straight away.

So what does our young Romeo do with his big moment? He tells her he likes her trainers. A pair of black Nike Theas. She said thanks, and that was about the extent of the chat, but she knew fine well she fancied him. The minute Ross was off that bus he was grilling his pals about the girl with the dark curly hair and the Theas, and then he did what any self-respecting teenager in 2013 would do. He found her on Facebook.

Then it got very 2013. They both put up "Like for LPC" posts, which, for the blissfully unaware, means Looks, Personality and Closeness: publicly rating people for everybody to read. Ross checked with a mate first and gave Amy a solid nine for looks. Amy gave him a nine back. She was not handing out tens to anybody just yet.

Months of daily texting followed, with Amy waiting, patiently, and she would like that word underlined, for Ross to ask to meet up. She was not asking first. He finally managed it on 20 April 2014, the day before her birthday: a walk round Erskine. She wore the Theas, which were extremely uncomfortable, because of course she did. They ended up at her local park, he gave her a peck on the lips as an early birthday present, and the next day he phoned to sing her Happy Birthday. Always the romantic.

Here is my favourite bit. For the next couple of months Ross came round to Amy's mum and dad's for movie nights, door left open, one kiss allowed on the way out to catch his bus. Her dad had already given him a quick Google at the dinner table and found out he had a Scotland cap for football. Not bad. What nobody in Erskine knew was that Ross's own mum and dad thought he was round at his pal James's playing FIFA. On 8 June 2014 he asked Amy to be his girlfriend, and he broke the news to his mum by shouting it over his shoulder as he sprinted out the door for school.

Then came the long years of buses between Erskine and Govan, once a week each way, with Amy's dad waiting at the stop to see her home. Exams, jobs, driving tests. A first holiday to Tenerife in 2017, where Ross was not quite eighteen and got the dreaded kids' all-inclusive wristband, so Amy did every single bar run. Mexico for their fifth anniversary, with Liverpool winning the Champions League, which was very probably Ross's highlight. A house in Erskine that needed absolutely everything doing, with the couch marked out on the floor in duct tape before there was a couch to put there. And in March 2024, Olly.

The ceremony, and a dog with a job

Amy and Ross kept it simple: no handfasting, no quaich. What they wanted was their own words and their people properly present, so they asked everybody to put the phones away and leave the pictures to the photographer until after the signing. In that room, with forty-odd guests close in, you could hear every word. Ross waited in the window with Andrew, Joseph and his brother Ryan, and Amy came in on her dad's arm behind Kay, Hannah and Nicole.

I had asked each of them, separately and in secret, for three things they love about the other and one wee thing that needs work. Amy loves how caring and generous Ross is, and those sparkly blue eyes. Her one request: that he might, one day, be ready before her for a night out. Ross loves how thoughtful Amy is, how resilient, and how organised, which suits him, since by his own admission he is the exact opposite. The thing that needs work? Her patience. I did point out that this would make her a rubbish doctor. I stand by that joke.

They both wrote their own vows, and both of them landed. Amy's finished with a line I have thought about a lot since: "In every possible life, it's you and me." Ross had been asked for three things he loves and decided three was nowhere near enough, so he read out a list, somewhere in the middle of which was dancing together when there is no music playing.

Then Olly. Andrew clipped the ring pouch onto his collar and the bridal party escorted him up to the front: a rough collie, in a room full of antique books, bringing his mum and dad their wedding rings. Amy grew up around rough collies, Ross fell for her family's dogs over the years, and Olly is their absolute pride and joy, thoroughly spoiled by everyone, Auntie Kay and her Pets at Home habit in particular. There was only ever going to be one candidate for ring bearer.

Twelve years together, nearly half their lives. They spent their tenth anniversary at two different weddings, Ross at his cousin's and Amy at her best friend's, and Ross still had flowers, balloons and chocolates waiting in her hotel room. That is them. Ross is the calm to Amy's worries and Amy is the organisation to Ross's chaos, and they finish each other's sentences. Next up is Australia for the honeymoon, where Amy may have to drag him home, and one day, the south of France.

Marrying at Mar Hall yourself?

Mar Hall sits in its own woodland above the Clyde at Bishopton, a nineteenth-century Gothic house that is now a five-star hotel. Amy and Ross married in the Library Room, and for a wedding of around forty it is a cracker: grey-blue panelling, bookcases lit from inside, a chandelier, a gilt mirror over the fireplace, and a great arched bay window looking out over the trees and hills. We set the ceremony in that window. If you marry in this room, do the same.

A few things from the front of the room. On a bright afternoon that window is behind you, so the room gets darker towards the guests and the lamps in the bookcases do a lot of the work; talk to your photographer about the backlight before the day. The room held their guests comfortably and close, which is exactly why an unplugged ceremony works here: the phones stayed away, and after the signing I invited everybody up for their own photo. Put your signing table beside the bookcases, as Amy and Ross did, with a few framed family photographs on it. And if you are bringing a dog, agree it with the wedding team early and give one named person the job of looking after them before and after. Olly had an entire bridal party as his escort. Every dog deserves that.

One more: Mar Hall is about ten minutes from Glasgow Airport, which is handy if half your guests are flying in. There is more on the house and how the day runs in my Mar Hall venue guide, and my Glasgow wedding celebrant page covers the city and everywhere round about it. If you are wondering what actually happens on the day, start with what happens at a humanist wedding. Thinking of a four-legged ring bearer? Read my guide to dogs at weddings in Scotland first, and if the vows are what has you worried, there is a whole guide on how to write your wedding vows.