Glyn Morris
Bagpiper & Celebrant
About Glyn
I’m Glyn Morris, the bagpiper and wedding celebrant behind Scottish Bagpipers. I’m based in Edinburgh, but originally from Kingussie in the Highlands, where I started learning the bagpipes at the age of nine. They’ve been a huge part of my life ever since.
Over the years, piping has taken me around Scotland and across the world, from solo bagpipe and pipe band competitions to playing for weddings and events. These days, I also create and conduct wedding and vow renewal ceremonies, combining my work as a celebrant with the music that started it all.
I moved to Edinburgh in 1996 to study Business and Information Technology, and it’s been home ever since. Somehow I managed to leave university with a degree, despite a busy piping schedule and a six-month stay in South Korea promoting Mackie’s Ice Cream! A “sensible” job in IT followed, although the bagpipes were never going to take a back seat for long.
Early years
My first piping tutor was my Kingussie High School History teacher, David Taylor, who is also a respected and published highland historian.
With plenty of encouragement from my parents and family, I competed in local piping competitions, performed in the local hotels and started in the Juvenile band of the Vale of Atholl Pipe Band. Alongside competitions, I also learnt how to play the Scottish Small Pipes and played these in traditional Scottish folk bands.
The Badenoch Pipe Band at Ruthven Barracks outside Kingussie, around 1991. I’m on the far left, and my dad’s in the middle holding the white bass drum sticks! This was back when many bands still wore Full Highland Dress.
Competition piping
Piping competitions take place throughout the summer, with solo pipers competing at many Highland Games all over the country, and pipe bands at band championships. Both involve months of practice and preparation for a performance judged on the day.
Solo piping
Solo piping competitions are a huge part of becoming a competent piper, and this was no different for me. Weekends that weren’t spent playing with the pipe band were usually taken up travelling to Highland Games all over Scotland, competing and learning from some of the best players around. Those experiences and the practice rerquired shaped me as a piper and gave me the grounding I still rely on today.
Competing is something I still do today. I’ll always try to keep a few Saturdays free from weddings so I can head back to some of my favourite Highland Games and test myself in the solo competitions. It’s a great way to stay sharp, stay connected with the piping tradition, and enjoy the buzz of playing in a competitive setting.
I will play the same meticulously prepared bagpipe at your wedding or event as I’ll play in front of a judge at a solo bagpipe competiton!
Pipe Bands
My pipe band career has taken me from Scotland to New Zealand and back, playing in Grade 1, the highest level of pipe band competition.
I went on to play in the Grade 1 band of the distinguished Vale of Atholl Pipe Band. When living in New Zealand I played in the Grade 1 Manawatu Scottish Society Pipe Band, and gained several top 10 finishes in the finals of the Grade 1 World Pipe Band Championships. Recently I’ve played in the Grade 1 Police Scotland Fife Pipe Band, who are at the very top end of the pipe band world.
Starting Scottish Bagpipers
I started the business in 1997 under the name “Bagpipers of Distinction”, with an advert in the Yellow Pages. That was how people found a piper, or anything for matter, before everyone started looking online! By 2003, I had a website at scottishbagpipers.com, although keeping up with the website side of things didn’t go quite as well.
For a while, my IT career took priority. The website lapsed, but I continued piping at weddings and events through various agencies. So, although I wasn’t doing much with Scottish Bagpipers, I was still doing plenty of piping. Then in 2017, I heard a piper playing at a corporate event at Edinburgh Castle. I wasn’t impressed, and it made me think I should be doing more with my own business. I knew I could offer better playing and a reasonably priced service, and decided it was time to get on with it.
So, in 2017, I relaunched Scottish Bagpipers and started taking bookings directly again.
Becoming a celebrant
This started back in 2019, when Amy and Joel, a couple from Georgia, booked me to play the bagpipes for their elopement in Edinburgh. They knew they wanted a piper, but hadn’t really thought about how the day would go. They were planning to say some words to each other, with nobody conducting a ceremony, and were “open to suggestions”.
Having attended countless weddings as a piper, I had a pretty good idea of what was involved and some of the Scottish rituals we could include. So I bit the bullet and offered to conduct their ceremony as well as play the bagpipes!
I went on to officiate more wedding and vows renewal ceremonies, but wanted some proper training before making this a regular part of my work. Several celebrants I’d worked with at weddings, and really liked, had trained with the Academy of Modern Celebrancy, so it was a no-brainer for me to do the same!
I enrolled in 2023 and, after completing my training and passing my assessments, qualified as an independent wedding celebrant in February 2024.
Other important stuff
Shinty
I took a four-year break from pipe bands to play shinty, which I used to play at school in Kingussie. Traditionally very much a Highland game, it’s being taken up in the south of Scotland now too. Here I am playing for Aberdour Shinty Club in Fife.
Sadly, in 2018 my ageing(!) hamstrings began to object, so that was my last season. In 2019 it was back to the pipe band world.
Fun fact: My hometown club, Kingussie Camanachd Club, was recognised in the 2005 Guinness World Records as the world’s most successful sporting team, having won 20 league titles in a row and every game for more than four seasons!
My assistant
This is Seòras (Gaelic for George), a Belgian “Schipperke”. He particularly likes a wedding at a country estate, where he gets a walk during the time in-between the ceremony and the wedding breakfast. His favourite venues at the moment are Newhall Estate and Hopetoun House!
