Our Wedding Day: Flowers and Decor

As if you weren't all already sick of hearing about our wedding day I'm back, with another instalment. This time it's all about our flowers and decor...

First up, flowers... I found the beautiful Leona from Every Occasion Florist while reading the 'Brides of Kerry' magazine. She was mentioned by one of the brides in the real wedding section, I looked her up and I’m so glad I did. She got my style and vision instantly. Our flowers were based around a couple of inspiration pictures I found on Pinterest and the three main elements I wanted were Peonies, hydrangea and eucalyptus. As you can see from the pictures Leona did such an amazing job she creates works of art, just look at that arch.

On the decoration front, I made everything I could; all the invitations, booklets, table plan boards, signage, table numbers, colouring books for the kids, hand sewed bows for pew ends, spray painted jars for candles and vases the list goes on. The art degree definitely came in handy. I started the DIY as soon as I started planning, and chipped away at it all on weekends. This meant that by the time the wedding rolled around there was no last minute stress. I'm lucky enough that I design a lot as part of my day job so I was able to do all the stationery myself. This also worked out a lot cheaper and made our budget stretch that little bit further. 

For our guest book we made fun questionnaires that were stuck to the pages for our guests to fill out and doodle on. It was hilarious going through it a couple of days later to see what everyone had written.

With the ombre table numbers that I had picked up in a hobby shop and painted, the jars everyone at work had collected (myself and Shane spent a couple of weekends spraying/crackling them -  there are loads of videos on YouTube on this). I was delighted with how the tables turned out. Leona also filled the jars with flowers after I worked out an arrangement (half the tables had a large centre candle with smaller jars surrounding it with buds, while the other half had a flower arrangement surrounded by jars of tea lights). I then made matching menus which were slotted into the serviette, wrote everyone's names on brown label tags with a pink ribbon that tied it all together.

I was so happy that it all came together in a perfectly imperfect, pretty way. It was exactly how I had imagined it was going to be! 

Our Wedding Day: Venue and Food

I'm back, with another instalment of 'Our Wedding'. As our one year anniversary fast approaches, I thought it was about time I shared my thoughts on our venue as well as (what everyone always wants to know) the cake and the food! 

The Dingle Skellig Hotel was an obvious choice for us. They were brilliant from start to finish. Nothing was too much trouble. They thought of the little things that we never would have. Getting to know the team there was really lovely. It felt like they were all a part of our day, especially Danny and Rosarii our wedding coordinators who put so much effort into making our day special. After our drinks reception, (before the meal) they even took the time to whisk us away to the bridal suite for 20 minutes so that we could have some time to ourselves before the party really kicked off. This meant so much to us as it gave us time to reflect on the day so far. I can't wait to visit again soon and keep visiting for years to come, the whole team in Dingle are amazing!

A lot of time was spent on the menu, with both of us being foodies it was important to us to get it right. There was a fantastic tasting where all of our dishes were tried and tested. We had decided on a trio of treats for our dessert so the chef made a huge plate of options to try, before picking the final three. This was one of the most enjoyable evenings in the whole planning process. We made a night of it, even bringing family along for their opinions. It was also important to us to include local produce, which we did where we could. Below is our finalised menu (designed by myself):

I’m cake obsessed so this tasting was one of my favourite parts of planning! We had a beautiful three tiered, butter cream frosted cake made by O'Carrolls cakes, Killarney. The largest layer was a sponge cake with strawberries and fresh cream. The second, lemon with a lemon and coconut curd. The top tier, red velvet with cream cheese frosting. O'Carrolls also made our wedding favours, delicious butter shortbread cookies cut into heart shapes with our names embossed in the icing… yum! Gary was so helpful and really understood my vision, he perfectly recreated the cookies I designed and created the wedding cake of dreams from all my random ramblings. 

It would be impossible to completely sum up how fantastic both the Skellig and O'Carrolls were in one short blog post but I hope I have somewhat done them justice. I've linked their names above to their website if you would like to check them out futher!

Our Wedding Day: Hair and Makeup

As promised, I am currently writing a blog series on our wedding day in the hope that if you are presently planning/looking for suppliers you might discover some of the fabulous people involved in our day. 

Today is the turn of hair and makeup, how could I not start here. It's everyone's dream to look their best on there big day and you can't go wrong with the two people who did that for me: 

Make up - Kathryn O'Neill:

There will never be enough good things I could say about Kathryn, she is a dream. We bonded over our love of makeup and skincare during the makeup trial. On the wedding day she could not have been any more amazing. She was so calming that morning, chatting to her and listening to her stories kept me sane, it was only after she left that the nerves began to kick in and I haven’t even got to how talented she is yet... 

I had picture upon picture ready to show her of what I wanted but I needn't have worried, Kathryn created a look that was perfect for me. "The best version of you" is what she called it and she more than achieved that. She is a makeup guru and her recommendations are necessary, at least that's what I tell my husband each time I make a new purchase and tick another product off a mental list of her mentions. 

Hair - Cathriona Rohan:

Lets be honest who doesn’t know that Cathriona is the hair goddess of Kerry! I emailed her straight away when we got engaged to make sure she was available and thankfully she was. Local, full of creativity and to top it all off she's a fricken hair genius. 

The morning of the wedding the whole of Kerry had a power cut, I had wet hair probably up until an hour before we had planning to leave but, Cathriona was as cool as a cucumber. Ringing around to find out if we could pop into one of her salons if needed and tackling the bridesmaids hair without any heat styling. Luckily she had the tongs ready for when it came back on and got me church ready in no time. She is also opening a new salon in Dingle on July 1st, so we all know where I'm going to be visiting when I'm next home!

So there we have it, I wouldn't hesitate in recommending either of these lovely ladies. I've linked their names above to their website if you would like to check out anymore of their work!

Our Wedding Day

The time has come when I can finally share my wedding photos with you all. Our families have seen them, they are up on our walls and now it's your turn. At this point it feels like it never happened. To quote the oldest phrase in the book, the day really does fly by. But, I think we made the most of it. It was an incredible day, one I will never forget and the best fun I've ever had! 

 

Our photographs were taken by the best, Into The Light, they did an amazing job. I will fill you in on all our suppliers in my next post, as I would highly recommend every single one, each contributed to make our day special.

From the very beginning we knew the wedding style we wanted. It was important to us to focus on having fun and spending time with our friends and family. Although there were traditional elements to the day we stayed true to ourselves, which made it even more special. I didn't wear a veil, we didn't rent a car ( I decorated our own) and drove ourselves to the venue. We walked bare foot along the beach, into the sea and climbed over rocks for the photographs. I also walked to the church with my bridesmaids and my father. We both loved every minute of the little things that added up to make our day unique to us. 

Choosing our wedding colours wasn't hard. I was very decisive in all my choices, luckily my husband agreed with my vision, pitching in where he could. He especially enjoyed the cake and menu tastings (for obvious reasons). Being from the area I headed straight for my local priest and onto our lovely friends at the Skellig Hotel. It wasn't hard to find the rest from there, with so many amazing local businesses to choose from we were spoiled for choice. 

Being creative I undertook a lot of DIY; from the seating plan board, to the centerpieces, to sewing bows for the pew ends, to even designing our invites (I knew that art degree would come in handy one day). Doing so much DIY did get stressful at times, but I prepared as much as I could in advance. This meant that by the wedding day I was relaxed knowing all my planning had paid off. Which was lucky, considering the morning of the wedding we had a power cut! 

One of my favourite parts of the day was after the drinks reception (before the meal). Our wonderful wedding coordinators at the Skellig had scheduled in time to whisk us away to the wedding suite, where they had drinks and some treats waiting for us. This was something we really appreciated as it gave us some time alone (just the two of us) in the madness of the day to reflect on what had happened so far, before the real partying kicked off.

There were too many to choose from but getting ready with my beautiful bridesmaids and MOH; Reminiscing, spending time together, cracking open the Moet and listening to the talented and calming influence of Kathryn O'Neil (our fabulous makeup artist - more on Kathryn in my next post) was definitely a highlight. I lastly have to mention the speeches, heartfelt and meaningful they will never be forgotten! 

We were so lucky, with the fabulous weather (I got sunburnt) and the amazing people. I really believe we milked the day for all its amazing-ness and enjoyed every second. I wouldn't change one thing, it was the best day!