underground wedding
at the caves

Hayleigh and Scott waited 4 whole years for their showstopping underground wedding afterparty! After legally tying the knott during Covid, they decided that 2023 was the year to finally have a big celebration at The Caves in Edinburgh. Their big day was filled with mood lighting, killer music and a showstopping black wedding dress. Keep reading to find out more about this magical celebration.

Photos by Apricot Tree Photography

Video by Paper Street Productions

a wedding
worth the wait

Hayleigh shared with us the struggles of wedding planning during the pandemic, and the joy of finally getting their dream day:

“Our wedding was planned for September 2020 but our plans got delayed thanks to Covid. We got married at home in our garden on our original date but had a lot of stress with more postponed dates and uncertainties. We put our plans on hold, had a baby, and waited for life to get back to normal.

We finally had our afterparty this year and it was worth every minute of stress! We started planning early 2019 so it was around 4 years by the time we got our day.

We had a lot of family travelling from England and my Dad, step-mum, brother and sister live in America so being able to have them with us was one of the reasons we wanted to wait until it was safe for everyone to travel without risk of cancellations. It was the first time we were able to see them in person in nearly 5 years so those memories will be extra special.”

underground
wedding styling

With an underground wedding venue like The Caves, it’s important to nail the lighting so that it brings the styling to life. The couple told us:

“We are both alternative and love rock and metal music. We love going to gigs together and we wanted our wedding to feel like a gig and reflect our own personal style. We found The Caves in Edinburgh doing some research online and as soon as we saw the exposed stonework, the moody lighting and feeling the atmosphere (even with the venue empty) we knew it was exactly what we were looking for. Knowing that they also did live music sealed the deal for us.

We wanted the venue to do most of the talking so we kept our decor minimal with help from Platter and Pop. We focused on candles and fairy lights with hints of black, gold and copper throughout.

We also had a black and white wedding cake from Falkirk Cakes complete with gold leaf detail.”

black wedding
dress

This underground wedding wouldn’t have been the same without some killer wedding wear to match the moody vibe of the venue:

“I was so lucky to find the most amazing black wedding dress at a bargain price. Gosia Weiss created my dark wedding makeup look, and Styled by Lauren Spriddle made magic with my hair.

Although we were already legally married, Scott really loved seeing me walk down the aisle in my dress for our Humanist wedding ceremony by Stephen McLaren.

Finding a cute coordinating black dress for our mini rock and roll girl Ivy was so special. We are so glad we were able to have our daughter be a part of this day as she obviously wasn’t around for our original planned date, it felt like it had all happened for a reason to be able to have her there with us.”

the
afterparty

This music loving couple knew the tunes needed to be just right for their special day:

“Music was very important to us so we knew we needed to have a knockout band to party after our ceremony and meal. We didn’t know where to start but stumbled across Coast Entertainment Agency and found a few bands we liked the look of. Man From Delmonte were in our top contenders list and they announced a show nearby. We decided to have a date night in Inverness to go and check them out and within about 3 songs we knew they were the band for us! They did not disappoint on our big day either and the dancefloor was packed from their first song!”

underground
wedding

Hayleigh and Scott’s four-year wait culminated in an incredible underground wedding afterparty at The Caves in Edinburgh. To round off this blog post, we’ll leave you with some alternative advice from Hayleigh:

“Focus on the things that mean the most to you instead of a tick box of what ‘should’ be in a wedding. Small touches that mean something to you add so much more to the day and these are the things your guests will remember.”