Aboard the Cal-Mac ro-ro ferry MV Juno, the passengers keep the tinted windows firmly shut, leaving the driver to pay their fare (£23.75 return for the car, £5.90 each for himself, Madonna and Guy Ritchie). Thirty minutes later, Rothesay harbour is visible through the drizzle.
The limo inches up the pier. One of the town’s most celebrated attractions, the award-winning Victorian toilets, is visible to the right. As the driver heads out of town, his famous passengers, anticipating a vegan spread, may want to stop at one of the Zavaroni chip shops for something hot and fleshy in crisp batter.
Who knows what might happen if Stella McCartney, 31-year-old daughter of former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney, chooses to wed at Mount Stuart House, the magnificent baronial pile five miles south of Rothesay on the Isle of Bute? Rumours are doing the 25-mile circuit of the island that the fashion designer will wed Alasdhair Willis there at the end of August.
McCartney is refusing to confirm where and when she is getting married. Yet there is clearly something big happening on Bute at the end of August: hotels have been block-booked in the name of Mount Stuart, and the Rothesay Pipe Band has been kitted out with new kilts.
On first impressions, it is a curious choice of location for a woman whose personal fame and wealth come from the rarefied world of fashion. A Bute wedding appears to be Plan B: McCartney’s original idea was said to have been to marry on Saddell beach on the Mull of Kintyre, said to be her late mother’s favourite place on earth.
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Guests — McCartney’s close friends Mr and Mrs Ritchie, Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Gwyneth Paltrow and Liv Tyler — would stay on a yacht and be ferried to the ceremony by smaller boats. Carradale’s fishermen, however, scuppered this scheme by refusing to give up a day’s catch to transport film stars and models minuscule distances.
It’s also possible that McCartney has switched venues to snub her father. There appears to be a growing rift between the two; McCartney recently announced that, rather than allowing her multi-millionaire father to pick up the tab, she would pay her own way.
Sir Paul married Heather Mills, who is 25 years his junior and only four years older than her stepdaughter, last June. It is clear there is no love lost between step-daughter and stepmother; McCartney was very close to her late mother and is still coming to terms with her death from breast cancer in 1998.
Which leaves one of the world’s top-flight fashion designers — her eponymous line is backed by Gucci and she recently opened a flagship store in Knightsbridge — planning and paying for her wedding without the help of either parent. Scotland is her preferred option — McCartney spent much of her childhood on the family farm in the Mull of Kintyre.
Madonna’s wedding at Skibo Castle became the model for the secure yet romantic celebrity wedding. But copying her friend’s idea is not an option. In fashion, imitation is never an acceptable form of flattery.
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But even with the clock ticking, Bute seems a curious choice. It lacks the Highland romance of Skibo. There are no imposing mountains or glens, and no lochs.
Rothesay, the only thing resembling a town on the island, is a pre-Costas holiday destination with an identity crisis. The esplanade, Discovery Centre and legendary Victorian toilets are smartly painted, with a basket of flowers hanging from every available excrescence. Much of the rest of the seafront, however, is a car park and ferry terminal.
The shops and cafes are largely time-warped and charmless, the bars have swirly carpets and names like the Criterion or the Taverna Lounge Bar. It has neither the candy-coloured charisma of Plockton, nor the wild frontier appeal of Stornoway.
Mount Stuart, on the the other hand, presses all the right buttons. The ancestral home of the Marquess of Bute it is a splendid example of 19th-century gothic revival architecture, as intricate and lavish as one of McCartney’s own trademark trouser suits.
The 300-acre gardens are green and lush with views down to the Clyde. The large lawn could accommodate a marquee village or act as a temporary helipad.
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Inside the house is grand and gorgeous, having been extensively restored by the current marquess, former racing driver Johnny Dumfries. Mount Stuart’s own chapel, lined with white Carrera marble which turns red when the sunlight hits the walls, is as dramatic a setting as any bride could desire.
The house’s marble staircase could have been designed for making an entrance and the dining room walls are hung with the work of Raeburn, Reynolds and Gainsborough. Even the jaded party animals of McCartney’s inner circle would enjoy dancing in the 80ft-ceilinged marble hall adorned with stars.
McCartney could sail her guests up the Clyde on a yacht and moor off Bute out of sight of Rothesay. They could be ferried ashore to the tiny pier at Kerrycroy, a picturesque semi-circle of white houses overlooking the shore.
They could then be driven up to Mount Stuart through the gates at the end of Kerrycroy. Or, if the sun was shining and the guests’ fashion-issue 100mm heels allowed it, they could walk up to the house through the trees.
Security would not be a problem. The entrance to Kerrycroy, off the main road around the island, ends at Mount Stuart’s gates. It would be easy to block it off for the day. The wedding McCartney has in mind would also give the island the kind of publicity that is impossible to buy.
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It would not be on quite the scale of Madonna’s wedding but many of the ingredients are the same: showbiz guests, fabulous outfits (designed, in this case, by the bride herself), a fashionably inaccessible location. Then there is the added spice of McCartney’s relationship with Mills, with pundits ready to work over every shred of evidence of a fall-out.
It’s unlikely that the media circus would be 500-strong, but there would be huge interest in the ceremony, which would take pictures of Bute all across the world.
Madonna’s wedding, in December 2001, immediately brought £2.5m into Dornoch and the surrounding area, with the media spending £250,000 on accommodation alone. Skibo Castle, which was already a popular wedding venue for the deep-of-pocket and wary-of-publicity, received hundreds of inquiries. Bute Tools should stock up on stepladders, an essential part of photographers’ kit — there was not one to be had for love or money in Dornoch when Madonna was wed. The staff of Maison Gina should perhaps get this month’s Vogue and do some swotting. Just in case.
I DO: THE ULTIMATE IN ROMANTIC SETTINGS FOR A WEDDING
Skibo Castle, Dornoch
Scotland’s most popular venue for celebrity weddings: Madonna is by far the most famous Dornoch bride but actress Ashley Judd and racing driver Dario Franchitti, Robert Carlyle and Ewan McGregor have all chosen Skibo. Former Brookside actress Jennifer Ellison is eyeing the castle for her forthcoming wedding to businessman Tony Richardson.
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Luss parish church, Luss
Model Kirsty Hume wed Donovan Leitch, son of 1960s singer Donovan, by the banks of Loch Lomond in 1997. Noel Edmonds also chose the church for his wedding to Helen Soby.
Coylet Inn, Loch Eck, Argyll
Emma Thompson married fellow actor Greg Wise at the couple’s converted barn in Argyll last week. They had their reception at this 17th-century inn.
Gilmerton House, East Lothian
Hollywood actress Jennifer Connelly married Hulk star Paul Bettany in a secret New Year’s Day ceremony this year.
Duns Castle, Berwickshire
Footballer Robbie Fowler married Kerry Ann Hannon, the mother of his two children, in the grounds of the castle in 2001.
St Cuthberts, Hawick
Impressionist Rory Bremner married artist Tessa Campbell Fraser in the Borders town in 1999.