A Medieval Castle Durrow Wedding from Paul Kelly Studio3

From the bride: We wanted our wedding day to be romantic and lots of fun. We wanted to have an intimate venue and invite only close friends and family. On my side of the family we don’t get together as a family very often so really wanted the whole thing not just to be a celebration of us but also of our families coming together.

What things inspired your day?

As Malachy will testify, I am a complete romantic so really again that was my main inspiration. I think the main thing we were on the same page with was what we didn’t want and it all went from there really.

The Ceremony

We wanted a very traditional ceremony, we booked St. Mary’s Church in the tiny village of Inistioge, Co. Kilkenny (the Church dates back to 1210AD) where I had been christened and my parents married – there really was nowhere else for us. My Nan also is a Church Warden there and it was also a very important place to my granddad that is no longer with us. I am Church of Ireland and Malachy is Catholic so we did have some fun trying to incorporate both religions into the service. We asked Canon Adrian Empey, who christened me, to officiate and Malachy asked a family member, Fr.Martin Clarke, who christened him, to also be involved in the service. We also asked members of the Christchurch Cathedral Choir in Dublin to come and sing for us. The music was incredible and almost gave the church back its medieval feel!

Flowers

Flowers were also important for us. We chose Lamber de Bie in Kilkenny to provide everything and dress the church and reception for us. I loved my bouquet – I really wanted bright yellow flowers and a more garden feel rather than formal flowers. Lamber just understood what I had in mind!

Invites

I am a bit of a DIY guru so decided to take on the task of the invitations, menus and church booklets myself. I decided to do it all from scratch and although it was an incredible amount of work I am still glad I did it (not sure I ever want to see another invite again however)! I wanted to keep the invites quite traditional but add our own touches also. I decided on a heavy cream linen paper and added navy and deep yellow ribbons to it and printed the inserts in navy also. I love a bit of drama so also included the following at the end of the invitations: ‘Note from the Bride – Hats non essential but definitely encouraged!’. It was great fun on the day and now we love all the colour in the photos!

The Suits

Malachy is a red head and therefore the men’s suits caused a bit of contention in terms of what colour would work best… we ended up choosing navy tails with cream ties for the best man and groomsmen and the fathers and ushers wore matching navy suits. Malachy wore navy tails and a fab navy and cream tie we found in a shop in Dublin that he loved and will wear again and again.

 The Dress!

My dress – I just adored it… I knew it was the one the second I saw it! I had initially thought I would go for something fitted and lace but when I started trying on dresses my Mum kept saying no and that I should try on something bigger until I ended up in the fabulous Vera Wang basque waist, 10 layer tulle ball gown with cathedral length veil!!! Now I had always dreamed of a Vera Wang dress but unfortunately it was just not in my budget… until I found a shop in Dublin selling preloved and sample dresses… in fact my dress still had the tags on it and had never been worn! The only problem was it was a size 16 in American sizes so about a 20 here so I had massive alterations done… luckily the lady altering it had worked in Vera Wang previously so had all the know how! The dress came with an olive green velvet ribbon but I sourced a warm cream one instead as I wanted a more muted look for the church. I also bought a pale pink grosgrain ribbon for later in the evening as Inga Reed, an Irish jewellery designer, made me my pale rose quartz necklace that I wore for the reception.

The Bridesmaids

My bridesmaids were my best friend Niamh, my only sister Zoe and Malachy’s sister Édáin. They were fantastic – from the planning and wedding shopping to my hen party to the actual day. They wore strapless full length navy chiffon dresses with cream peep toe shoes. I was keen that they wore navy but after that I didn’t mind if they wore long or short or the same dress of not… luckily they all loved the one dress! I bought them necklaces/ earrings that were made by Rachel Swan, another Irish jewellery designer, which were silver and oxidized silver on the inside so it almost looked navy in the light.

The Venue

The venue we chose for the reception was Castle Durrow, Co. Laois – initially we were thinking of getting a marquee and putting it in beautiful gardens only a few minutes from the church but due to the fact you can never guarantee the weather in Ireland that option just was not feasible. We are so glad we ended up in Durrow. The old house continued the romantic almost medieval theme through the whole wedding. The gardens and grounds were stunning with flowers everywhere – not to mention the fact there was lots of accommodation so all our guests were able to stay close. The food also at the reception was fantastic and they were very flexible in letting us add our own touches to the meal – Malachy and I love cheese and they allowed us bring cheese from Knockdrinna Cheeses locally for them to serve at the end of the meal.

What was your favourite part of the day?

My favourite part of the day…well that is tough. The most memorable will always be the wedding service – the feeling was incredible standing up in front of all our friends and family saying how much we loved each other and will stay with me forever.

Second, it has to be the dancing – we had a great band and then DJ after that. The dance floor was never empty all night! At one stage I had 5 girls all holding part of my dress so I could dance properly in the underskirt!!!

Any advice for planning brides?

Finally, now that the day is over I am so thankful that we hired such a great photographer and videographer. Initially I had been concerned that there would be too many people overwhelming me but I could not speak more highly of Paul Kelly and Thady Kavanagh. Thady just slipped into the background and I barely saw him all day! Paul on the other hand had everyone laughing and having fun as he was taking the photos – he really put people at ease. Both the photo album and videos we have now are just great and I am so delighted we will have them to look at in the years to come.