How to get here

The nearest town to our venue is Dunbar and the nearest village is Tyninghame

The exact address for your sat nav is

Log Cabin, Ravensheugh Beach, Tyninghame, Dunbar EH42 1XW

From the log cabin website (where I took the pix from too)
The Log Cabin has very close links with the A1 and is situated at the end of Limetree walk, near Tyninghame.

Directions:

From the North

1. Take the A1 south east from Edinburgh
2. Exit at 2nd Haddington sign, and follow the A199 towards Dunbar
3. After passing East Linton, go left onto A198 towards North Berwick
4. Just after Tyninghame turn right onto Limetree Walk.




From the South

1. Take the A1 north from Berwick Upon Tweed
2. Exit at Dunbar and follow the A199 towards North Berwick
3. Turn right onto A198 and pass the village of Tyninghame
4. Turn right onto Limetree Walk.



There are buses and trains from Edinburgh to Dunbar and then you can get a cab to the venue or if we work it out right you can get one of us to collcet you.

Actually finding the venue is a bit of a mystery but we will post some signs for you to follow.

Things to do in the area

Dunbar is a very sweet fishing village with some interesting ruins.
Here's some ideas from their website:

There are several excellent walks, particularly in the Belhaven area, with its broad unspoilt beaches. The West Promenade, a cliff-top walk, is part of the John Muir Trail which takes in the John Muir Country Park, the East Links children’s farm and model railway and the famous Binning Woods. Dunbar possesses two excellent golf courses, an all-year indoor swimming pool and a sports centre. Fishing trips are also available in season (March-September).

You can visit the nearby Scottish Museum of Flight



Up the road is North Berwick which is lovely. You can take boat trips out to see the birds at Bass rock or see them from the Scottish Seabird visitor centre.



If you like golf there are several world renowned golf courses.

And then of course there's Edinburgh which is only half an hour away....

Camp it up

One of the reasons we booked the site is so that our friends could camp all weekend. We wanted our wedding to be a bit like a festival but without the vomiting teens setting fire to grasshoppers or the queues for rancid toilets. So the camping situation is this:

You can arrive any time after 12 pm on Friday.
You have to leave on Monday morning.

Access is via a single unmade road but is suitable for cars. For those with mobilty issues you can drive right to the door of the marquee. The area round the marquee is flat grassland.

Our site is the John Muir National Park so it's very beautiful and peaceful (til we arrived.)
There are some nice grassy flat areas for camping near the cabin and for more privacy and adventure some little places to set up tent down towards the beach.



There will be one portaloo and the woods for boys- make do!
There will be one flushing loo with soap, towels, flowers, toilet paper, nice magazines for girls and children.

There aren't any showers. We're thinking of getting some solar showers. Maybe you will just have to be less than fresh by Monday. There's the sea. Or maybe someone will have booked a cottage nearby and let you use that.

We will be staying on the site, but on the Friday before I (ali) will be removing myself with my posse to a place of civilisation and pampering. The boys will stay with the fire and the barrels. Oh dear!

Please let us know if you want to camp so we can have an idea how many tents to expect.

If camping fills you with horror go to the accommodation page where there are lots of suggestions for Bed and Breakfasts, hotels and cottages.

Dressing up

We want you to feel good at our wedding, so if you want to wear a t shirt and jeans it's ok by us. There's no dress code.



I (ali) am dressing up though as to me it's an excuse to buy and wear a glamourous frock. I got my dress from Courtesan boutique in Worthing and they do sell online. They are brilliant!
The look we are going for is a kind of glam punk- a bit 1940s/1950s with a decadent vintage feel. If you want to go along with this -fine. If you wan't to dress how you normally do- that's ok.
The site is fairly exposed and can be a tad windy. It might rain too so bring wellies to put on if it does.



We are hoping to have a photo booth which is an opportunity for you to dress up just for the shot! If you have any dressing up clothes you could donate for the weekend that would be fantastic.

http://abackyardwedding.blogspot.com/search/label/photobooth

I am always touched by your presence dear

peonies+and+polaroids.jpg

We are not really materialistic people and we are more than happy for you to just turn up.

There are things you could bring to the wedding which would be nice- such as flowers from your garden, candles, lanterns etc.

If you are staying three days, food for the breakfast picnic or barbecue would be good.

For entertainment beach games and kids things we could borrow and and we also need dressing up stuff for the photo booth.

If you want to we would love it if you made donations to charity- these are our favourites:
Teenage Cancer Trust
Rosemere Cancer Centre
Shelter
Save the Children
British Heart Foundation
Barnados

Finally if you really want to give us something we would love some help with the honeymoon! We want to spend 2 nights in a swanky hotel in Edinburgh- Prestonfield House and you can buy vouchers for this.


We are hoping to go to Morocco and Greece for our Honeymoon so anything towars a nice hotel or train/ferry trip would be great.

Accommodation

Although you are welcome to camp FOR FREE we understand that many of you prefer the comfort of a proper bed!

We have come across this B&B which looks very nice.

This farmhouse Crauchie B&B is where I would stay if I wasn't camping!


Dunbar is the nearest little town with lots of B&Bs see the links. Hillside hotel looks nice for £80-£100 per night. Other Dunbar accommodation is available here.


Further afield is Haddington, North Berwick and of course Edinburgh
At Overhail's Farmhouse you can stay for £70 per night for 2 adults and 2 kids.

At Inveresk- not far away you can stay at the Premier inn from £64
and in Edinburgh a good deal is Travel Lodge Central which is from £77

For those that like the idea of camping but prefer Glamping Harvest Moon looks fantastic and they are just down the road. Look at the cute sleeping bed! Expensive though.


Owners Direct offer some fab apartments and cottages. In Edinburgh, we love this glam house round the corner from where we used to live- it sleeps 10 and they have another that sleeps 5


Closer to the venue this cottage looks nice

A few of us are getting together to do girly things with bunting, vintage stamps and teacups. There are manly things to do too like making flaming torches- (not that we don't want men with a taste for the lace doily or a woman with a great affinity with cans and paraffin.)



Anyway if you would like to help us in crafting we would love you to join our Diy team.



Flowers
I love flowers. Maybe because my mum was a florist and I loved to sit under her counter while she worked. The smell of flowers makes me very happy- so we will be having as many flowers as we can. I really like nice old fashioned garden flowers, so if you have some in your garden it would be lovely if you could bring some along. A vase, jam jar old jug would be useful too.
We especially want:
old roses
hydrangea
lavender
sweet peas
stocks
We also have some seeds if you have place to plant any.
Any lanterns or candles would also go a good way to decorate our vintage tent and make it pretty.

Drinking

Being in the middle of nowhere presents us with somewhat of a problem with drinks. Of course there will be welcome cocktails, bubbly after the ceremony and wine/beer with the meal but what to do after (especially with the amount some of you drink!)? We can’t afford a free bar all night and we looked at bringing in a firm for a cash bar but the bar prices are way too high!

We came up with one solution which we hope is ok by everyone. Bring your own wine, bottled beer, cans, alcopops or whatever it is you drink.

However, bottled beer might be a bit warm and cans can be a bit rubbish. Second solution: We are planning to buy in barrels of cask ale and cider from a Scottish brewery- to be named soon! We can’t afford to have a free bar all night but we thought we could subsidise the bar and sell the beer to you at £1 pint.

That way we get great ale, cold, on tap and cheap! Does this sound ok?

We will soon be giving a list of the possible beers. We need feedback so we don’t over or under order. (John says as if over ordering would be a problem!)Watch out for our next beer post!



We will be topping you up with wine through the meal so let us know if you drink red or white wine with your meal or if you don’t drink at all of course! We can’t just nip to the corner shop if we run out!



Cocktails
We are hoping to have a cocktail bar running until the drinks or the cocktail waiter runs out!
Please send us your favourite cocktail recipes and we will do our best to include it.

If you have any strange cocktail mixers left over and lurking in a back cupboard any donations would be grateful.

So that's the drink situation. Cheers!

Eating

Of course we will be having some lovely food after the ceremony, but look- we have a tent, a tap and a generator. It won't be a three course sit down hot dinner. But we do love our food so it's going to be a lovely sort of high tea. There will be
a cold buffet with three main options:
Salmon
Beef
Veggie
There will be plenty of other stuff to eat too (heaps of lettuce, tons of tomatoes and lashings of ginger beer) and - it goes without saying-lots of cakes and puds.

I am not sure my cupcakes will look as good as these by
Please let us know which main option you will be choosing so we can cater.
We welcome suggestions for a children’s table- what do your kids eat? It can't be anything hot as I think the oven is pre war!

If you have any dietary requirements please let us know.

On Sunday we will cook breakfast over the fire and on the barbecue.
If you are staying over could you please bring any bacon, sausage, veggie stuff you want and if you have any old frying pans that would be great.

Sunday lunch will be a picnic and we hope to have some nice bits and pieces. Bring a rug and a basket if you want to be posh! There are some lovely walks along the coast and beach games are planned. If it’s raining we might have our picnic in the cabin and watch some films.

Sunday evening will be a barbecue and we ask you to bring stuff you like to eat to cook again on the fire and barbeque. There's an Asda in Dunbar- 5 miles away if you would rather shop on Sunday instead of bringing stuff up.

We are hoping to finish off the barrels of beer and generally chill out.



For those still left on Monday morning- we will be foraging for nuts and berries!