A picture of the postcard highlighting the number 

The front of the postcard depicts a copy of a marriage certificate that would be issued at the Blacksmith Shop in Gretna Green. It was published by The Blacksmith’s Shop co. in Gretna Green. The importance of this shop will be discussed in more detail in the next section, but in a short summary, the building “sits at the very heart of the village” and was where young couples would meet “the local blacksmith who conducted marriage ceremonies over the … anvil in his shop” (Gretna Green, 2018). 

An example of a typical picturesque postcard

There is no clear indication that this postcard is a part of a specifically named series. However, one could argue that all of the marriage certificates that were issued by the shop are part of the series of marriage documents. The number under the picture of the shop could represent the place that the certificate holds in the series but this is just a hypothesis. Furthermore, since this is a legal document instead of just a depiction of a famous location, it is printed in portrait style. It is difficult to place this postcard into one of the categories of postcards that were examined in this course because it does not necessarily fit the characteristics that were looked at. We examined that standard images of Scotland would depict beautiful landscapes (mountains, hills, lakes) or just picturesque scenery and architecture in general because that was the appeal to tourists (Durie, 1992). Instead, this postcard is an actual document, so it deviates from the typical images that were highlighted throughout the semester. Although it does contain an image of a building, that is not the entire focus of the postcard, nor is it very picturesque, thus showing that it deviates from the typical depictions of Scotland.