Sparks Flying for Romantic Festival...

As far as we are aware, tweets don't often lead to festivals.....but that's exactly the case here at Gretna Green!

As some of you might remember, earlier this year we came across a tweet by an American author, Valerie Bowman, whose novel Secrets of Runaway Bride featured our very own Famous Blacksmiths Shop sparking the idea of holding a romantic festival here at Gretna Green.

Yesterday (30th of September) marked the next milestone in the planning process as we welcomed romantic novelists to Gretna Green to spark some lively discussion! Eight of these wonderfully creative people arrived at Smiths Hotel in the afternoon for a general meet-and-greet over lunch before sitting down to hammer out ideas for debates, formatting, timing and more.

Could be just us but we were rather surprised to learn just how varied the romantic genre is - who knew that medical romance or romantic suspense were themes!?

Thanks to the wonderful group of authors who joined us yesterday, we now have heaps of ideas to pen the romance in a new direction! Not a bookish person? Fear not....we are carefully crafting our festival to ensure activities of interest to all, err, characters will be going on! Anyone fancy food tastings, demonstrations, costume displays, re-enactments.....who knows, there might even be a competition or two for you to throw your hat into?

Lots of work left for us to complete in the next few months but we're looking forward to the challenge! We'll be sure to keep Facebook and Twitter updated as edits occur. So stay tuned here as we plot our way to bringing you our Gretna Green romantic festival...