Guest Post: Kat of Pierrepont Hicks

To get to the Isle of Mull, our friends and family had to fly into Scotland, via Edinburgh or Glasgow, rent a car, drive to the West Coast town of Oban, where they would catch a ferry to Craignure, the tiny ferry landing town on Mull, one of the Hebrides inner isles.  The drive from Craignure is 45 minutes North to Tobermory, on single lane roads that have little shoulders known as "passing points" where you basically pull off to let someone pass you (or let someone not hit you head on, as in the case of our guests who drove about 20 mph pissing off the locals who whiz along these roads at 80 mph).  I should mention they have an annual car rally on Mull where people race and pull all kinds of Luke Duke moves in their banged up mini coopers.

By having a destination wedding, the goal was to have only those who really and truly wanted to be there - there. And so it was.  49 of our friends and family showed up. They showed up kind of pissed off. There were guffaws at our reception dinner when Mac gracefully thanked everyone for coming.  "I think everyone has experienced that feeling on vacation, when you end up somewhere amazing, like Mull, and you wish you could magically transport your friends and family to share it with-" "Magically!??" my uncle chortled from across the room.

Throughout the hundreds of hiccups (maid of honor's hair dryer blew out half of the town’s lights Friday night, my mother announced morning of the wedding that the English boxwood I thought was so quaint along our dining tables "smells like cat pee," and the usual drunken endeavors of goofy friends in kilts), Mac glided through making frizzy guests laugh and angry innkeepers smile. We woke up pretty much the entire sleepy town of Tobermory, inadvertently, with our American-ness.  I remember one lovely little old man walking along the dock next to me, the morning of our wedding, as I breathed in the crisp salty sea air, hot tea in hand: "I can tell you're American because you people bring your massive cups of coffee everywhere."  We tried to fit in, but if you've ever seen the film "Local Hero" – it was kind of like that.

As the weekend progressed, my mother's luggage lost still on the morning of, I started having a physical reaction to the stresses through blotchy hives caused I believe by the close range of my family members (extended and in-laws) on an island with nowhere to run.  But Mac remained calm the entire time.

Coming up: Kat and Mac (the wife and husband behind my all-time favorite ties) have each put together lists of their destination staples.

"Nothing too fancy," says Kat.