Home > Thomas Prior Hall Wedding by David McClelland

Thomas Prior Hall Wedding by David McClelland

For Ciara from Dublin and David from Galway it all started at college RAG week, the rest is sweet wedding history!

Irish wedding blog

Here is a little more from Ciara:

We met...

Dave was a lighting operator for concerts and shows and I was an art student in GMIT and part of the Student Union. We hired him as a lighting operator for Rag week. I was painting a sign that needed a touch up and I nicked his ladder! Thankfully, he didnâ€™t mind and we got chatting, we spent the whole week laughing and hanging out and that Friday we had a little kiss, and it just happened to be Valentineâ€™s Day!

First impressions...

I thought he was very good looking and that he looked rugged in his work gear, I was very impressed with him. I spent the week pointing him out to my friends and then playing it cool when he was with me. When he first saw me, I was in bits, wearing old clothes and covered in paint, but he didnâ€™t seem to mind.

Our proposal...

I was taking accountancy exams and was studying hard for them. We decided to take a weekend away after the exams, but I didnâ€™t have time to organise it so I left it up to him. He brought me to Ashford Castle, and after we arrived we went for a walk in a beautiful garden, he got down on one knee and popped the question. We hadnâ€™t talked about getting engaged before, so I didnâ€™t expect it at all! He had picked the ring himself and Iâ€™d never seen him so nervous!

Our wedding theme/colours...

We had a red and ivory colour theme. I had red shoes, as I had always wanted to wear different colour shoes. I also made all the wedding stationary in these colours including the invites, table plans to place names.

My dress...

I wore a Maggie Sottero dress called Layne. I got it in Alexander Bridal where I also got my communion dress 20 odd years ago!

Our ceremony...

We had a church ceremony and the priest was a friend of my Dadâ€™s, he started the day off in such a relaxed way that the atmosphere remained for the rest of the wedding. He was funny and told a few embarrassing stories and everybody had a smile on their face. I vowed I would not be late, but the girls couldnâ€™t figure out how to close my dress and there was a lot of traffic, so I was nearly 45 minutes late!

I also forgot my ‘something borrowedâ€™ and so I had to ask my sister in the middle of the vows to borrow her wedding ring to wear!

My favourite part of the wedding day...

I canâ€™t pick one single part. A couple favourites were riding in the car with Dave as we were leaving the church; the speeches where we laughed and cried because they were so thoughtful and funny and the first dance because we both swing dance and were nervous we wouldnâ€™t be able to do it with me in the dress, but we pulled it off brilliantly!

My advice for other brides...

Be precious about your time on the wedding morning. Timetable everything and make sure everybody knows what they have to do and by what time, so thereâ€™s no rushing. Make sure to delegate tasks during the day, I had a beautiful guest book but it didnâ€™t get signed by most of my guests, I was really looking forward to reading it afterwards so was very sad not to have it.

Do as much DIY for your wedding with your H2B as you can, itâ€™ll give you so many more memories and make the day more intimate. We made our own cake, Ferrero Rocher tower and stationary and were very proud of the way it turned out.

I have a friend from college who is a sculptor and for a wedding present, he made us a metal tree to hold the tiers of our cake. The tree is in our garden now. It was a beautiful idea and everybody loved it.