Siobhan & Robert Real Life Wedding

New year, new feature!

Here is the first of my monthly posts featuring real life weddings! Up first is Siobhan talking about her big day in Wexford!

The couple: Siobhan Nolan & Robert Mulkerrins
Ceremony Venue: St. Columba’s Church, Ballyduff, Co. Wexford
Reception Venue: The Ferrycarrig Hotel, Wexford
Date: 4th August 2012
Dress: Paloma Blanca
No of Bridesmaids/Groomsmen: 3 of each
Bridesmaids Dresses: Jim Hjelm
Grooms suit: Remus
Photographer: Ger Carty, Enniscorthy
Length of engagement: 18 months


How did you find planning your wedding?
As an event manager I was probably a bit of a nightmare. I wanted to have all the little details perfect and spent a lot of time gluing my fingers together and doing DIY. I wouldnt change a thing. I enjoyed doing all the personal touches and making it personable to us. We had all 200 of our guests to my parents house after the ceremony and before the reception for some drinks and food while we took photos. It gave us a great opportunity to mix with everyone and it kept all of our guests together for the day too which was great.

Was your groom/bridesmaid hands on?
Rob was great. He helped with invitations, even if I did take the glue gun away from him on many occasions as lines and ribbons weren’t straight. My bridesmaids helped a lot with the party that we had just after the ceremony – getting things organised.

Were there any hiccups on the day of the wedding?
There’s always a few little things isn’t there! It started to drizzle outside the church and when we were having photos taken my veil got dirty. The Ferrero Rocher trees that I painstakingly made were brought out at the wrong time and were missing in the evening for the afters. Our DJ went a bit mad and I think he played Galway Girl three times in a row at one point!! At the end of the day there’s always a couple of little things but they are so insignificant in the grand scheme of things that they pale into the background.

Favourite moment of the day?
Oh difficult! There’s probably two… Walking up the aisle. I was so nervous and very teary. It was a tiny church and I only had to take about 10 steps but when I got to the top I wanted to give my dad a hug but he shook Rob’s hand and ran away! I had to chase him back down the aisle a few rows to do it. The second was in the car on the way to the hotel after the reception at my parents house. I had about half an hour with Rob to have a chat and we drank champagne and laughed the whole way there!

What do you wish you had know when planning your wedding?
I wish I had known that while I may have worried about handmade lace favour boxes, pearl tealights, candelabras and everything vintage that we added to our wedding that a lot of this goes a little over your guests heads. Lots of people commented on them but I’m sure they didn’t notice if lace was straight or exactly how many pearls was on each one! It’s so easy to get caught up on the small things but at the end of the day it’s about being surrounded by your family and friends and being happy. It goes so fast and it’s only day – sure it’s an important day but it’s only the beginning of many happy days with you and your partner!

Anything unusual that you want to promote the supplier?
One of the best things that we did was we did an engagement shoot. I was so nervous about having pictures taken and posing that we did a shoot where we first met in UL with the very talented Sean Curtin from Poppies and Me. It was brilliant and put me so at ease. We used the pics in a photo book and used it as our guest book on the day.

Do you wish you had done anything differently? E.g. booked something earlier, different supplier, invited more/less, etc?
Of course, there are certain suppliers that I would now have instead but I’m so happy with how our day went. One piece of advice is to always shop around and get the best value for your money. There’s no point blowing the budget or paying off your wedding for five years afterwards! Enjoy every moment and appreciate all the lovely hugs, smiles and gestures of love from all of those that will be so happy for you on this occasion.

I hope you enjoyed my first Real Life Weddings post and that Siobhan’s advice may be useful to all those newly engaged brides!

Love from my world,

Lisa x