Finlay Wilson has made a name for himself online and around the world as the Kilted Yogi. After he built a sizeable audience for himself showing his daily practice online, the yoga instructor and author got a gig filming content for BBC's The Social platform. An outtake of that footage went viral, being viewed over 40 million times online after he flashed his butt while doing a handstand in a kilt. But now, the Scotsman is making headline once again for his wedding to fellow yogi Alan Lambie in a socially-distanced ceremony in their yard, in a ceremony presided over by RuPaul's Drag Race's Michelle Visage in her show How's Your Head Hun? All of this was put together in about 36 hours.
"Our [original] plan was to have about 45 guests at our home, renovate the garden, and invest In our house -- it's about 200 years old," Wilson tells Out. "We planned to have our celebrant there to conduct the vows, to bring our friends and families together and then share a meal together before heading off on our honeymoon to the Scottish borders." And while that wasn't possible, getting hitched on television is nothing to scoff at.
Wilson and Lambie initially met in Edinburgh about four years ago at a yoga workshop Wilson was teaching. At the time, neither was in the place for a relationship: Wilson was recently out of a particularly messy divorce, and Lambie was soon to be a widower, as his husband had a terminal brain tumor. Still, the pair became friends and stayed in touch. Over the span of the next year, that began to develop into something more, with them eventually beginning to date.
"He showed himself to be a gem," Wilson says. "We were about 90 minutes drive away from each other and his commitment was admirable!" Slowly online followers got to see them integrate their daily yoga practices together, and their dogs Ami and Bond, get to know one another. In 2019, Wilson proposed shirtless at Pride in Washington D.C. The pair were a part of the British Embassy float and only a few days prior Lambie had had surgery. "It's a miracle he was upright for the proposal!"
The original at-home wedding was planned for June 7, as a full-on affair, but as the realities of the global pandemic set in, that possibility seemed less and less likely. Wilson finally posted that the couple had decided to cancel the wedding, in hopes of postponing until 2021 but a few quick-thing followers flagged an opportunity: Michelle Visage was looking to be involved with a same-sex marriage for Pride month and there were 24 hours left to apply. At the 23 hour mark, they sent an application in and received a call from an assistant letting the couple know that they were the top four out of 800 couples, and latter got a video call from Visage herself for the episode.
"For us, we wanted to share with our community," Wilson says when asked about important aspects of the ceremony. "They came together and decorated the street, gathered petals to throw as confetti, dressed up, and cheered us on. It was marvelous to feel so accepted." A pair of local boys that Wilson and Lambie teach yoga too played bagpipes as they walked down the "aisle," and then after the Zoom ceremony, they shared their first dance as husbands in a nearby park. The entire thing was filmed with a local camera crew from last-minute updates to the garden, to confessionals, and the ceremony itself, all planned in 36 hours. Wilson's twin brother even pitched in to photograph the wedding while the rest of the family watched via Zoom, a friend donated a cake, and neighbors watched over the walls of the property.
Visage called the pair the "most gorgeous couple I have ever seen," before conducting the ceremony.
"[Michelle] conducted the ceremony with such class, explained to everyone the importance of Pride, and became part of our story," Wilson says."
Congratulations to Mr. Finlay Wilson and Mr. Alan Lambie.
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