SNP minister Kate Forbes has married her fiancé Alasdair MacLennan at a church service in Dingwall today.
The Scottish Government's cabinet secretary for finance and the economy visited Victoria Park - home of Premiership side Ross County FC - for pictures after the ceremony.
Family and friends were present at the ceremony, and due to restrictions on numbers the wedding was also livestreamed on the internet so other well-wishers could witness the happy occasion.
Kate and Alasdair - known as Ali - had announced their engagement earlier this year.
Forbes said: “We are delighted to get married, with some friends and family. Many watched online instead of joining us in person, because of Covid-19 restrictions.
“After a difficult 18 months for everybody, our wedding day has been full of joy. We hope other couples enjoy the same happy day, even with all the worries and frustrating of planning a wedding around restrictions.”
Forbes, 31, is tipped by some within the SNP as a potential successor to Nicola Sturgeon one day.
She was first elected to Holyrood as MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch in 2016 and quickly made a name for herself in the corridors of power.
Forbes was catapulted to national attention in February 2020 when she was handed the finance secretary job by the First Minister just hours before the Scottish Government was due to present its annual budget statement to MSPs.
The sudden promotion was caused by the unexpected resignation of Derek Mackay, who quit after a newspaper revealed he had sent hundreds of text messages to a 16-year-old boy.
Sturgeon handed Forbes a beefed-up role in May when the SNP leader reshuffled her cabinet following the party's Holyrood election victory.
Forbes was partly raised in India after her parents travelled there as missionaries when she was just six weeks old. She is a member of the Free Church of Scotland, which follows a strict interpretation of the Bible.
It is opposed to gay marriage and believes there are few circumstances in which abortion is justified.
In an interview with the BBC earlier this year, Forbes said she had never tried to hide her faith.
But she said she had been "as guilty as anybody of tiptoeing around" it because of a "fear and a sense that the public will think we only speak for our own rather than speak for everybody".
Forbes said: "To be straight, I believe in the person of Jesus Christ.
"I believe that he died for me, he saved me and that my calling is to serve and to love him and to serve and love my neighbours with all my heart and soul and mind and strength.
"So that for me is essential to my being. Politics will pass - I am a person before I was a politician and that person will continue to believe that I am made in the image of God."
She added: "Some of them will agree with my politics, others will disagree. Some will agree with my faith, others will disagree.
"I have a duty to represent them, but neither do I want to deceive my constituents and I think being straight with them about my faith, about who I am, about my background is really important."
