Kelsey and TJ came from Alberta with nine of their family, a soft spot for anything medieval and a request for a small castle. We gave them a ruined chapel on a hill instead. Nobody complained.

Here’s how they first put it to us:

Kelsey had been to Edinburgh before. TJ hadn’t, and had always wanted to. Which is a good position to be in, because one of you gets to show off and the other gets to have their mind blown.

A medieval ruin with the whole city below it

Small castles that take a dozen people and a celebrant are harder to find than you’d think, and most of them come with a gift shop. St Anthony’s Chapel doesn’t. It’s a ruin from the 1400s sitting on the side of Arthur’s Seat in Holyrood Park, with the crags behind it and Edinburgh laid out underneath. For two history fans it was an easy sell.

The morning started in a Georgian townhouse in the New Town. Kelsey got ready in her custom wedding Keds, TJ in a burgundy three-piece, and they saw each other for the first time on the staircase. Then up the hill, with the family puffing along behind, which was the only bit of the day anyone found hard work.

Their celebrant married them in his kilt with the city at their backs. A handfasting, their own vows read off folded paper, rings, a signature, and then a lot of hugging. Proper, lengthy, nine-people-in-a-queue hugging.

Cocktails at House of Gods, then the long way round

The family headed off to get changed and we kept Kelsey and TJ for the afternoon. Down past Holyrood Palace, then into House of Gods for a drink, which is all red neon and velvet booths and about as far from a ruined chapel as you can get in ten minutes. After that we walked them through the Old Town with the Castle hanging over them, stopped for a snack, and carried on to Dean Village, St Bernard’s Well and Circus Lane.

Dinner at Prestonfield

Then out to Prestonfield House for dinner with the family, past the Highland cows in the field next door. Prestonfield is a 17th-century house full of red velvet, candlelight and old portraits watching you eat, and if there’s a better room in Edinburgh to feed the people you love, we haven’t found it. Drinks in the drawing room, a candlelit table for eleven, and the two of them sneaking off for a few last portraits on a sofa older than Canada.

“They asked for a small castle. They got a medieval ruin on a hill, dinner at Prestonfield and their whole family there for all of it.”

Eloping doesn’t have to mean just the two of you. Nine guests, a ruin and a long dinner is still an elopement, just a sociable one. The planning is the same: we work out the where and the when, and you turn up.

Thinking of bringing your family along? Here’s everything about eloping in Edinburgh with us, or check your date and we’ll take it from there.