The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Home where generations of same family tied the knot is up for sale
Church owner tells poignant story of building where she and ancestors walked down aisle
A woman bought and moved into the church where generations of her family got married – then tied the knot there herself.
Amanda McFarlane, 55, wed husband Sandy, 63, in the same building where her mother, aunt, grandmother and great-great-grandmother all walked down the aisle.
Their home, Church House, now for sale, was once a church where several of her ancestors got hitched but was converted into a house in the 1980s.
Amanda and Sandy bought the Grade C-listed house in 2004 and quickly carried on the family tradition of holding weddings there when they wed three years later.
Sandy’s son, Rennie McFarlane, 33, continued the tradition when he wed wife Kelly, 35, in the family home in 2013.
Amanda said: “I knew mum and dad had been married in the church but I hadn’t realised how many family connections there were.
“My grandmother, great-greatgrandmother, aunt and great-aunt all got married there.
“On our order of service, we listed all the previous marriages in my family.
“It was an obvious decision to marry there.
“I’d been familiar with the wedding pictures, and we recreated the pictures in the same place in the church, so you can see how it has changed, and how it hasn’t changed, through the ages.
“I feel as if we were meant to be here, that somehow we were meant to come back to the church – like predestination.”
In 1959 Amanda’s mother Moyra Smith had walked down the aisle in what was then a church, to exchange vows with her father, William Scott Blyth. Grandmother Betsy Robertson Scott wed her husband William Clark Blyth there in 1927.
So it was a special day for Amanda’s elderly parents when they watched her walk down the aisle on June 28 2007.
Built in 1843, it was one of three churches in the Bow of Fife, near Cupar, Fife, and was mostly used for weddings.
Amanda and Sandy bought the house in 2004.
With her children Lucy, 21, and Rory, 28, living away from home, and Sandy’s retirement looming, the couple decided to sell up and downsize.
They put the five-bedroom house on the market for £650,000 and decided to build a new home in St Andrews where Sandy, a GP, can play golf.
Amanda said: “The one thing for us with selling it is that I won’t get to see my own daughter or son get married there.”
Amanda said it was “love at first sight” when she first visited the house.
She added: “There were three churches in the area and this is where weddings were held. It has got a lovely feel about it – it has definitely got a very happy and peaceful vibe.”