Invisible String

"It was a fusion, but not in a forced way," Allison Boyajian-Hanley says. "Like two separate clans choosing each other. Which, I guess, is exactly what the whole thing was." Set against the dramatic backdrop of Edinburgh's Dundas Castle last June, the wedding of Allison to Stefan Hanley was a day that managed (with considerable grace) to be two things at once. Scottish and Armenian. Formal and barefoot. Carefully considered and entirely natural.

Allison and Stefan first met when they were working at an advertising agency, two people whose work asked them to think carefully about how things might look and feel and land, and who recognised in each other, almost immediately, someone operating on a similar frequency. "There was an instant spark," Allison says. "A kind of magnetism that felt easy and familiar from the start." She has a line she returns to (from a Taylor Swift song, naturally) about the feeling of not knowing whether you have known someone twenty seconds or twenty years. "That's exactly what it was."

"Loving each other has always felt easy. There’s never been a sense of effort or convincing. We’ve always felt like the best versions of ourselves when we’re together."

It has been six years since those early days, including a stint of long distance with Allison in Boston and Stefan in upstate New York that, the former tells me, set the foundation for everything that followed. "It forced us to learn how to communicate early, clearly and honestly. By the time we moved in together, we already knew how to talk things through." They now live in Lake George, in the Adirondacks, and the through-line of their life together is their ability to find meaning in quiet moments. "We are very content doing absolutely nothing," Allison says. "Slow mornings with coffee. Quiet evenings curled up on the couch with our dog. The small, in-between moments that don't make it onto a highlight reel but always feel the most full."

Stefan proposed in December 2023, a few days before Christmas. He had already sat with Allison's mother over tea and her father over cigars to ask for their blessings separately. When he suggested a walk that evening and then redirected to the car, (Allison tells me she was in sweats and his denim jacket, which she often borrowed) he drove to Saratoga State Park, to a gazebo where they had shared one of their first kisses. "The second I realised where we were, I knew," she tells me. He got down on one knee and told her he couldn't wait any longer. "Happy tears ensued. Then we walked, or maybe skipped arm-in-arm, back to the car, singing 'best friends forever.' Which feels right. Because that's what it is." The ring was a round diamond on a wide, tapered gold band from a female-owned jeweller in California which had been found, she notes with affection, from her not-so-subtle Pinterest board. "It was everything I could have dreamed of and more."

The wedding was held at Dundas Castle, which Allison explains as a practical and deliberate decision. Stefan's family is Scottish, Allison's is Armenian and many of them had never been in the same room before. "We wanted it to feel warm," she tells me. "And intimate and joyful.” She pauses. “A little weird in the best way, and also just like everyone could exhale. The kind of night where our families could fold into each other."

From the beginning, Allison had a clear vision and the vendors, she tells me, met her at every turn. "Instead of pushing back, everyone leaned in and elevated it. Made it better than what I could have articulated on my own. It never felt like we were asking for too much. It felt like we were building something together."

The florals (by Edinburgh-based studio Gloam) were all white and green: Playa Blanca roses, sweet peas, lily of the valley, Scottish wildflowers, lisianthus, royal tulips. "I wanted my bouquet to feel whimsical and organic," Allison says, "like it had been gathered, not constructed." The ceremony aisle wound around the back of the castle and spilled toward a fountain in white larkspur. "I didn't want a traditional aisle. I wanted it to be like I was walking through a meadow." Tables were ivory linen and lit by candles, with fresh green fruit tucked among the blooms. And the soundtrack of the day moved from classical to jazz before opening, as the evening loosened, into pop and hip-hop.

The idea of two cultures meeting and melding together underpinned the ceremony, made clear in certain, pivotal moments. From Scottish and Armenian dancing to the serving of cheese boreg, a traditional Armenian dish filled with Lockerbie cheddar from the region closest to Stefan's family. "That detail still makes me smile," Allison says. Two traditions pressed together in such a way as to enhance the other.

Allison wore a dress by Amsale, made of duchess satin that felt structured but soft, with a dramatic box-pleated train. "It felt regal the second I put it on," she says. "It had presence without trying too hard." The moment she cried was not at the dress but at a crystal-covered veil she tried alongside it, which corresponded precisely with a drawing she had made as a child of her future wedding dress. Somewhere in the archival chaos of her younger self, she had written: sparkly veil. "Standing there with it on felt like a promise kept between my younger self and the woman I had become." She wore her mother's pearl earrings and a necklace set with the diamond from her late grandmother's engagement ring. For the reception, she changed into a cream strapless Bernadette dress with a swiss-dot veil cape which, she tells me was, "effortless, romantic, and paired with no shoes.” She spent most of the evening barefoot on the dancefloor, a sign of a good night I think.

Stefan wore a Prince Charlie jacket and a kilt in Modern Mackenzie tartan, while the ring bearer (Allison's adorable nephew Theo) wore a baby kilt.

Photography was by India Hartford Davis of Dear Human (who travelled from Australia), which Allison explains was the first wedding decision she made. "I knew from the beginning that I wanted her eye, her perspective," Allison says. "She has this way of making you forget the camera is there, while somehow capturing everything. When I look at the photos now, it's not just how beautiful they are. It's that they feel like us."

Music was crucial too, with Allison telling me that it had always been something that brought her and Stefan together. "My family is deeply musical. So it mattered very much," she says. The ceremony music was classical renditions of Taylor Swift: ‘Invisible String’ for the bridal party, ‘Love Story’ for Allison's walk down the larkspur aisle, ‘Lover’ for the first dance. "Famously, Stef loved Taylor Swift long before I did," she says, with a laugh.

The speeches moved through Stefan's mother and his best friend, then Allison's father, her sister, and finally Stefan himself, who spoke about leaving Scotland as a young man, and what it meant to have both halves of his life in the same room at last. "There wasn’t a dry eye in the house," Allison tells me. "It was one of those rare moments where you can feel everyone’s hearts aligned at once." She pauses. "There's a line one of my best friends always says, 'To be seen is to be loved.' And in that moment, we felt so deeply seen."

Then something unplanned. The jazz trio was playing when Allison and Stefan were pulled aside to discover that the former's father and latter's aunt had taken the stage together — two people who had only just met, both naturally musical, performing 'Summertime' in the candlelit great hall. "Everyone was smiling and dancing along," Allison says. "It was one of those moments you can't script, you just receive."

As for what makes their relationship work, what has always made it work, Allison doesn't hesitate. "Nothing seems impossible if you can laugh through it. We don't take ourselves too seriously. We find something to smile about, even when things feel heavy." Stefan pauses before adding, "she is a pure soul, like a star with its own gravity, pulling me closer to positivity. And that makes me want to be the best version of myself to match."

Two families from opposite ends of the world, folded into one room in a Scottish castle. Exactly, it turns out, as it was always meant to be.