He carried the ring across Edinburgh in a Lidl bag.

Their story

It starts at Edinburgh University in September 2016, on the very first day of Freshers' Week. Kirsty had moved into halls and landed in a flat with Amy and Pete. Kyle was in different halls, but he had gone to school with Pete in Linlithgow, so when Pete asked a few of the boys round, Kyle came too. That was the beginning of what they still call the fam: a big, daft group that has stuck together ever since, and which supplied a fair chunk of the bridal party.

Kirsty dropped out of Edinburgh in the January of first year and came back through to Glasgow. It made no difference whatsoever. She was on the train to Edinburgh every week, and everyone could see what was brewing except, apparently, the two of them. Nobody was remotely surprised when they finally admitted it on a group holiday in Barcelona. Kyle had actually planned to ask her out on that trip, but the moment he picked came the morning after a very big night, and Kirsty was in no condition for a conversation of any kind.

Their first proper date was at Indigo Yard in Edinburgh. Kyle had a broken arm at the time, so Kirsty spent it cutting up his fish and chips for him. Try to imagine impressing someone for the first time while they portion your dinner. They have never stopped laughing about it, and laughing is most of what these two do.

Between them they racked up fifteen and a half years at university (ten of those are Kyle's, which he would like noted), then moved into a flat on Merchiston Grove in 2023 that came with mice, broken counters and letting agents who were not winning any awards. They loved it, because it was theirs. Their favourite thing in the world is a Saturday morning with a coffee and a book. They are about 300 books into a collection that needs 1,000 before they will allow themselves to call it a library.

There has been Krakow, where they liked a restaurant so much they went back twice in a three-night trip. Paris on Valentine's Day, where Kyle had a beautiful itinerary planned and then stopped to read every Napoleon plaque in the city. Italy and then Malta with Fi and Pete, heavy on the Aperol and the Monopoly Deal. And my favourite of the lot: the Christmas Kirsty secretly bought Kyle a golf club, got rumbled by a receipt, panicked, and claimed she was taking lessons so she could join him on the course. Rather than come clean, she then went and booked five lessons with a PGA professional. Her entire golfing career to that point had been a driving range on a date.

The proposal was Edinburgh, because Edinburgh is where they met. Kyle bought the ring from Laings, collected it on his lunch break, and carried it back through town in a Lidl bag so nobody would rob him. He had thought about a beach until Kirsty announced, unprompted, how much she would hate being proposed to on a beach. So he scouted Calton Hill on another lunch break, then booked dinner somewhere she had always wanted to go and suggested a walk up the hill afterwards. It rained. He dragged her up it while she complained about her new white shoes. They circled the top for twenty minutes trying to find a spot without tourists, which is impossible, until the rain got heavy enough to clear them out. He said he needed to get his wallet, and got down on one knee instead. Kirsty is still not certain she actually said yes. She remembers jumping up and down. Then a passing tourist came over to say she had photographed the whole thing, which is how they ended up with a picture of a moment nobody had arranged to photograph.

The ceremony

A string quartet played Kirsty in to "Slipping Through My Fingers", which is a brave choice for anyone with a parent in the room. Ahead of her came four bridesmaids, two page boys aged three and five, and Pat, Kirsty's gran, as flower girl at ninety years young. I had to ask the room to hold their applause on the way in, purely so the wee ones and Pat could get down the aisle without being overwhelmed. Quiet encouragement only. It nearly held.

There were guests over from Australia, which I mentioned by name, because if you have flown that far you have earned a mention. David read for us. Then we did the Secrets: the bit where I ask each of them, in confidence, for three things they love about the other and one thing that could do with a little work. They both delivered. I will not repeat what was said, but I can report that one of them has a serious problem finishing television series, and the other has a collection of miscellaneous stuff that has got out of hand.

We shared a quaich, poured by Kyle's mum and Kirsty's mum: prosecco for her, ginger beer for him, which is the most honest quaich I have poured in a while. Then a handfasting, three loops, one for his love, one for hers, one for everybody in the room. James brought the rings up in their bag, which is the correct way to do it with a five-year-old and saves everyone's nerves. They went out to Paramore, and the groomsmen had the whole room organised into a confetti tunnel before the couple had stopped grinning.

Marrying at Sherbrooke Castle Hotel yourself?

A few things from the front of the room. The Orangery is glass-roofed, which means the light is lovely and the weather is a participant whether you invited it or not. We had sun, cloud and rain inside an hour, and it only added to the day. If you are marrying there, do not spend a single minute worrying about a Glasgow forecast. You are indoors, and the room looks good in all of it.

Second, it is a genuinely easy room for guests. The aisle is wide enough for a bridal party of nine plus a gran taking her time, and nobody at the back is craning. Third, they only run one wedding a day, so nobody is hurrying you out for the next lot. Take the time between the ceremony and the meal rather than compressing it, because in the west of Scotland a dry half hour is worth having.

There is more detail on the rooms, the timings and how the day tends to run in my Sherbrooke Castle Hotel venue guide. If you are marrying anywhere in the city, start at my Glasgow wedding celebrant page: I live in Kelvinbridge, so couples booking me for Glasgow weddings pay no travel fees. If the handfasting appealed, there is a full guide to handfasting in Scotland and more on my handfasting celebrant page, and if it was the quaich that caught you, I have written about the quaich and how to use it too.