Second time around: A Fife love story about starting over
Marrying again in your 40s — what it taught us about doing weddings differently.
When Karen Fyfe married James Muir at a converted barn near Falkland in September, it was the second wedding for them both, and the first time either had planned one on their own terms. 'The first time round I was 24 and I did what I thought a wedding was supposed to look like,' Karen says. 'This time I actually knew what I wanted, and so did he.'
They met at a mutual friend's fortieth in Kirkcaldy, both newly out of long marriages, both a little wary of the whole business of romance. Eighteen months later they were engaged on a walk along the Fife Coastal Path near Elie, and within a year they had booked a Fife country house for a Tuesday in late summer, chosen deliberately for the lower midweek rate and the quieter feel it gave the day.
Doing it differently the second time
Both had children from previous relationships, so the wedding was built around inclusion rather than tradition. Karen's daughter read a poem instead of a bridesmaid giving a speech, and James's two teenage sons walked him down the aisle alongside his mother.
- No engagement photos with a ring reveal — they didn't feel the need
- A humanist ceremony conducted by celebrant Fiona Baxter, legally recognised in Scotland since 2005
- A guest list of 46, deliberately small, with no evening-only additions
- A budget of roughly £14,000, about half what Karen's first wedding cost in real terms
The legal side of marrying again
Because both had been divorced, they needed decree absolute paperwork when they gave notice to Fife Council's registration service, at least 29 days before the date, to be issued with their Marriage Schedule from National Records of Scotland. 'Nobody tells you that bit,' James laughs. 'We had folders of paperwork before we'd even chosen flowers.'
What mattered this time
Karen wore a slate-blue dress from a Dundee bridal boutique rather than traditional white, and there was no first dance — instead a ceilidh band, the Fife Ceilidh Collective, started the night with an Eightsome Reel that had every generation on the floor within minutes.
'The first time I was performing a wedding for other people,' Karen says. 'This time we just had a really good party with the people we actually love.'
A quieter kind of joy
Their advice to other couples marrying again is simple: keep only the traditions that mean something, and let the rest go. James puts it more bluntly. 'Nobody remembers the favours. They remember whether you looked happy.'
By the time the last guests left the venue's walled garden after midnight, the two of them sat on the steps with a dram each, married, unbothered by the drizzle that had started up over the Lomond Hills, entirely certain they'd got it right this time.