We’re Sarah & Mike (often referred to simply as S&M). When we were looking for our own wedding venue back in 2015, we were surprised by the lack of options available if you wanted to do something a little different. Although we picked a beautiful venue in the end (and of course we had the best day ever – you can read all about it over on Rock My Wedding) we struggled to find a venue that felt totally ‘us’.
That was when we decided that one day, we’d open our own wedding venue…. a big house where couples could come for the weekend with all their favourite people, which has bold and quirky interiors with a less traditional and fun vibe.
After a long search, we found the perfect venue in Netherbyres House. It had all the entertaining space we needed, huge amounts of character, plentiful bedrooms and beautiful gardens. We couldn’t believe our luck when our offer was accepted, and we moved in in November 2018.
Then came the hard work, turning what was a home for retired Gardeners into a place people would choose to spend their wedding day. Is was a very long and hard two years, decorating on the evenings and weekends while keeping up with our full time jobs in Edinburgh.
We had our first weddings planned for Summer 2020. Little did we know the chaos that would ensue that March. It quickly became apparent that our couples would not be able to have the weddings they’d planned for, so we moved all of their weddings to 2021 when the world finally returned to some sort of normality.
We’re now well into our fourth wedding season and loving life as wedding venue owners. It feels like such a privilege to be part of so many couples best day ever and to get such incredible feedback from them all.
Sarah
Organiser of things / stylist / marketing guru.
Sarah grew up near St Andrews and spent her Uni years in Aberdeen, before moving to London to pursue her dream of working in fashion marketing and events.
With a background in events planning and digital marketing, Sarah now gets to put her skills into practice organising weddings, and running our website and social media. She also gets to indulge her passion for interior design, coming up with the quirky schemes at Netherbyres.
On the wedding day, she’ll help you make your walk down the aisle at exactly the right moment, and get your tables set up just how you’d imagined them.
Mike
Creative Director / handyman / chef extraordinaire.
Originally from Leeds (the accent definitely hasn’t worn off), Mike went to University in Middlesborough before spending 10 years living in London working as a Graphic Designer. It was there we met each other (a pretty long and complicated story, we’ll tell you about it over a drink sometime), and then after a few years hard graft, we gave up our jobs to travel the world together, before Sarah convinced Mike to settle in Scotland.
Nowadays Mike’s often found fixing things around the house, maintaining the gardens, designing our marketing materials, shaking up an old fashioned at the bar, cooking up a storm in the kitchen, and trying to keep alive the many plants he keeps buying.