Mount Druid

"We got legally married on a beach in Barbados four months before our Irish wedding, just the two of us. We live in the Caribbean and it was much easier to organise the legal bits there rather than over the phone with the Irish registrar. We then had a humanist ceremony, reception and the wedding party in Mount Druid, Castletown Geoghegan, Co. Westmeath with our family and friends. You could technically say that we had two weddings. We're actually planning another wedding party next month, this time in Trinidad for all our friends there!"

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"I went to two bridal shops in Dublin City Centre and didn't find anything which I liked. I was walking through Georges Street Arcade and had 10 spare minutes on my parking meter so decided to walk in to Retro Shop not expecting to find my perfect dress but there she was! It fitted perfectly and the only job i did with it was shortening it by a few inches. It was also the bargain of the century! I wore heels for the ceremony which I got in TK Max and the remaining of the day and night I spent in white Converse - so much comfier! I also managed to wear my dress four days later to Twisted Pepper where the band who played the wedding, were playing a gig!"

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"I came to Ireland when I was 18 for a couple of months to learn English, I met Stu through our common friend and stayed there for a little bit longer - 10 years haha! We instantly fell in love with each other and decided to move in together after only two weeks together! People are generally laughing at us that it took us two weeks to move in together but ten years to get hitched."

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"Fantastic Beata Augustyniak from BA studio did my make-up and hair. I put Beata under tremendous pressure - 5 people for make-up and 3 hairstyles in 6 hours! She managed it so well. She made me, my mum and my bridesmaids feel extremely special that day. Plus she is super friendly and funny."

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"My ring was made my fabulous friend Lucy McCormack, a British artist based in Trinidad where we live. I went for a plane white gold round band while Stu only went looking for rings a couple of days before the wedding. The kind team at Designyard gave him a loan of a plain cobalt ring until the Titanium one he ordered was ready after the wedding."

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"I got my cute 'I Do' earrings from a lady called Rachel of Fabulous Whimsy."

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"The wedding was special to us because so many of our friends were involved in it. From flowers, cake, music, invitations, Polish-English translations, wedding favours, to hair and make up and soundsystem. We have the best friends in the whole world!"

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"We got engaged in 2011 in the most amazing place in the world - Koh Nang Yuan in southern Thailand. Apparently Stu had been trying to find a place to propose for two weeks and the perfect moment presented itself when I asked a Japanese tourist to take a picture of us on a spectacular strip of sand between two islands. The Japanese tourist took a picture of us but just after he took one Stu asked him to take another, dropped down on one knee, pulled out a ring and popped the question! The Japanese tourist stereotypically did what Japanese tourists do and we have more than 100 pictures from those few minutes!"

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"Stu decided on what he was wearing a few days before the wedding (can you see a pattern emerging?). He was wearing an olive-ish Ted Baker suit with a funky orange/green tie, green Cons and orange socks."

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One of the groomsmen forgot his clothes, thankfully Weddings by KARA were on hand for some last minute couriering! Here's Rachel asking, "how?"

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"I drove myself and my bridesmaids to the wedding! As we don't own any cars in Ireland, I borrowed my father-in-law's little Suzuki Jimmy and drove in my dress. It was great craic on the way! As the girls didn't want to crease their dresses, we stopped on the main road in Castletown Geoghegan to get changed! The amount of beeps from drivers passing my Polish-Irish-Italian bridesmaids, was crazy! Stu was supposed to get to the venue in his best man's vintage convertible Mercedes but because they were running out of time on the day, they decided to drive the best man's other car - a white van! We weren't overly concerned about the looks. When I got to the venue (15 min late for the ceremony) I found out that Stu and the guests were still in the nearby pub having a drink as they thought I would be much later. It was so funny seeing people running to the chapel from the pub!"

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"We ordered some flowers from a wholesaler and got the rest from friends' gardens. My wonderful bridesmaids, Aga, Chiara and Marzena, did the bouquets and the decorations in the venue. None of them have any previous experiences with flowers but they did an amazing job! You would swear they were professional florists."

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"I am big fan of Ska music and decided to walk down the isle to 'It Must Be Love' by Madness. As the band wear sunglasses in the videoclip, myself and my bridesmaids decided to wear sunglasses at our entrance too! I also liked the fact that the venue owner's dog decided to walk me down the aisle!"

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"We wanted a very relaxing ceremony with plenty of laughter. We were not concerned about the colour themes, decorations etc. Having fun and creating a laid back atmosphere was the number 1 priority!"

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"We decided to have a sand ceremony that symbolised unity. We mixed sand from Poland from a playground where I used to play as a child, sand from Tramore where we went on our very first date and sand from the beach in Barbados where we got legally married. It was a lovely touch!"

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"We had a fantastic ceremony run by Bridget Carlin from the Humanist Association of Ireland. Bridget made the ceremony very personal, warm and funny at times. She understood what we wanted and tailored the ceremony exactly to our personalities. We are forever grateful for that."

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"We walked out from the chapel to James Brown's 'I Feel Good' - the perfect song to portray our happiness at that moment! The most important thing for us was to have our family and friends there and to have as much fun as possible! We wanted the wedding to last longer than 1 evening therefore we had an after party that lasted till 7am and a BBQ the next day! We were very happy that most of family and friends all stayed with us in Mount Druid. Everyone loved their boutique camping with yurts, shepherds huts and father ted style caravans.

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It was quite difficult to organise the wedding from abroad. With the time difference, everything had to be done via emails. Lots of stuff was last minute, spontaneous and improvised, but we think it made the wedding even better! We met Karina a couple of years ago when she was starting her wedding photography company. She actually photographed Stu's sister's wedding, and since then we were big fans of her style; so simple and beautiful. Herself and Rachel are very professional and easy going. When we started planning the wedding, it was obvious to us that we needed to have Weddings by Kara at it. We're over the moon with our wedding photos! We decided to go for a very casual BBQ with organic meats, lovely vegetarian options and gorgeous locally sourced salads followed by apple pie made with apples from the owner's orchard. We also had a lovely canapes with homemade relishes and pestos at the reception in the boat house and yummy night bites to keep us going till the morning. We decided on the song for our first dance the day before the wedding! It was a 1930's song, Al Bowlly's 'Guilty', which funnily enough when we listened to the lyrics for the first time after the wedding we realised that it's about breaking up; haha only us! My absolute favourite moment was dancing on the stage with Attention Bebe to 'Freed from Desire' in a shell suit borrowed from one of the band members and seeing all our family and friends going mental on the dance-floor to it! Stu is saying that his favourite moment was seeing me walking down the aisle but I think he is only saying that to please me haha! We both also really enjoyed the best man speech which included photoshopped photos from our 'past'. It was hilarious! What we also found very funny was seeing our family members especially the older ones trying to 'wine' or 'twerk' to Caribbean soca music! We had DJ Matjazz and Attention Bebe at our wedding. Matjazz is my brother-in-law and he is extremely talented musician. He has a natural ability to get the party started and rock it till the very end. There was plenty of reggae, dancehall, old school hip hop, drum'n'bass as well as some cheesy stuff we asked him to play. When it comes to Attention Babe, we saw them live in Bernard Shaw about 6 years ago and we said that night that if we ever get married we need to have them at our wedding. We were delighted that they were free for our date. They absolutely smashed it! There was 8 of them on the stage doing wicked covers of 90s tunes! We decided to invest in a proper Funktion 1 sound system from Hertz-U Soundsystem run by our friend Collie to make sure the party was pumping! As we had two weddings, we had to have two honeymoons! The first one was in Barbados where we spent 5 days and the second one was a crazy 3 days in Miami. The biggest advice we would have to other couples is to do exactly what you want to do and have as much fun as possible! Don't be afraid to be a little bit crazy :)