Falling In Love All Over Again ~ A Wedding Dress With a Pockets & Bib Necklace Beautiful Red Shoes…

 

"I couldn’t wait to ask Clare to marry me even though I was pretty nervous!!
Hearing her say the word ‘yes’ completely overwhelmed me, I  literally couldn’t wait to get
married and I was counting down the days until the wedding.

It was nine years in the making, but but seeing Clare walking up
the aisle in that stunningly gorgeous dress made me the happiest man in the world
and I cannot wait to spend the rest of our lives together, I love her with all my heart…"

The Groom

 

Hello everyone. First of all, I want to make a BIG apology for not having blogged this weekend or before now today. I've had really big {bang my head against the wall} issues with broadband all weekend, having been let down horribly by Sky broadband, but am reassured by my new provider that everything will be back up and running by midnight – I'm keeping my fingers crossed like super-glue!  I'm having to use a fairly unreliable dongle connection in the meantime. But I will not be defeated, so, on with the show!

This beautiful, first wedding of the week comes to you from photographer Paula O'Hara, who was lucky enough to shoot the wedding of Clare and Ciarán, who tied the knot on 24 June 2012 at Lough Erne Golf Resort in Enniskillen.  I just adore Clare's dress – an elegant, ball-gown inspired creation by designer Mary Rose McGrath…

"I had a very strong idea of the style of dress that I wanted – it had to be big, as it's the only time you can get away with wearing a big white dress. It also had to be regal and timeless, so i chose Mary Rose to make it, as her signature look is ball gown skirts…" 

Love My Dress Wedding Blog – Photography Copyright (c) 2012, Paula O'Hara

"I had a stunning bib necklace especially made by an amazing designer in Pennsylvania called Marelle who has an Etsy store, and we struck up a great friendship over a few months.  As Marelle's necklaces are made to order she let me have a lot of input into the final design and she wanted to incorporate anything that had sentimental meaning to me.

As my faith is very important to me, Marelle put holy medals and beads into the design as well as hearts to symbolise our love and a blue gem for the ‘something blue’. It is lovely that I have something so special as a keepsake that I can hand down to my children…"

"My dress was a dream to wear – I loved it! I also wanted to put pockets in my dress, as I never know what to do with my hands and felt this would keep the look quite relaxed.

The pockets also proved quite handy to keep a few chocolate treats in for dad and myself on the way to the church – yes – we are both confirmed chocoholics! And the necklace that was put onto it was just the icing on the cake for me…"

Clare's beautiful red heels are from Bertie…

"The veil had to compliment the dress, so i went for a full length cathedral veil.

I only used a pearl slide to cover the comb of the veil.I kept my hair very simple because I had a statement necklace and didn't want it to be 'over the top'…"

"We chose Hydrangaes and roses as we loved the fullness of flower head on the Hydrangeas and the delicateness of the rose. I would describe myself as a 'bold statement' type of girl so I think the Hydrangeas reflected that and my bridesmaids are delicate and ‘girly’ so the roses complimented them."

"We wanted a style of wedding that was simple yet effective and when we look back in fifty years time it still looked fresh,we wanted it to be timeless. I spent ages thinking of a colour scheme and just couldnt decide on one.  I then had a lightbulb moment where it dawned on me I wont have a colour- I would have a ‘white’ wedding (well ivory)!  I love looking at wedding pictures of my grandparents from 1940’s and '50’s there is something so beautiful about the style and grace of the women of those eras.

We wanted to focus mostly on the wedding ceremony itself because we are a very religious family. We chose all the hymns and readings ourselves…" 

"Keeping with the 'initials' and a 'Chanel' idea we decided to cover the cake in Chanel buttons…"

"I changed in to a second dress for the evening, something a bit more streamline and sleek as I planned on being on the dance floor all night long…"

"Some couples said to me nothing really changes when you get married but I completely disagree I think everything changes.  They say that marriage is about falling in love over and over again with the same person and I definitely have fallen more in love with Ciarán.

Every time I glance at his wedding ring I can’t help but smile knowing that we are on this great life adventure together…"

"Our wedding photographer was  Paula O'Hara.  To some people it is the dress or the cake that is the 'big thing' but to us it was the photographs . I had been following  Paula's  blog for some years and fell in love with her style of photography. It's her attention to detail and capturing of emotion that sets her above the other wedding photographers in my eyes.

Her photographs can instantly make you connect with the people in them even if you have never met them and to me that is something very special…"

"We starting going out nine years ago on Friday 13th June – unlucky for some hehe!  Two months later, I left to go to university in Liverpool and thought it was best we called time on our relationship as i didn't really do 'long distance'.   Ciarán wanted me to  give it a try as he was certain it would work. He was right, the distance didn’t become an issue as I was home every two weeks {easy jet’s best customer!}. Ciarán Proposed on Holiday in Turkey…"  

"Unknown to me (normally nothing gets past me) he had asked my parent's permission a week before he proposed. On the day itself Ciarán had hired a speedboat and decided to take me out to explore some of the islands, he had anchored the boat in the middle of the ocean and we had a beautiful lunch. By the end of lunch I could see Ciarán was getting a bit agitated and his eyes started to well up! At this point I thought something awful had happened, but to my sheer relief he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.

The next day we went and designed my engagement ring and got it delivered a few days later, it was more beautiful than I could have imagined."

"We chose our wedding venue, Lough Erne Golf Resort, because we fell in love with the beautiful scenery. Being two city slickers we wanted out of the city and into the countryside. The Resort sits right on the Lough and it just radiates tranquillity…"

 

"We put up some bunting made from photographs, the first line was photographs of ourselves when we were young symbolising where we came from and the second was photgraphs of us togther symbolising our togetherness and that we have became one..."

 

Words of Wedded Wisdom…

"Put your own stamp on it, let your style and personality shine through.  Try to incopropate things of sentimental value and do not stress!

Most importantly, your wedding day is the beginning of a new chapter in your lives together so try not to get carried away with ‘decoration’ of the day instead remember what the day symbolises-the union between a husband and wife, it really doesn’t matter if you haven’t got enough crystals on the table or whatever it may be… just be happy that you are surrounded by loved ones and give thanks for everyone’s health and happiness..."

Much love to you both Clare and Ciarán, thank you for sharing your beautiful and very stylish day with my readers – and helping to make my broadband woes that little bit less annoying this morning 🙂

Huge thansk to photographer Paula O'Hara also.

Ladies, who is wishing for a wedding dress with pockets now? And as for that necklace… I'm off to scour the Marelle Etsy store!

Lots of love all,

Annabel

Photographer – Paula O'Hara
Venue – Lough Erne Golf Resort
Brides dress – Mary Rose McGrath
Brides shoes – Bertie
Brides accessories – Marelle
Grooms Suit – Ludlows
Bridesmaids Dresses – Hiliary Morgan
Cake – Sarah Jane Cakes, Enniskillen
Florist – Tempo Flowers, Enniskillen
Cars/Transport – David Andrews Cars  http://www.davidandrewsweddingcars.com
Entertainment – Peach and DJ Kevin Mullan
Hair Stylist – Pello hairdressers
Makeup Artist – Jennifer Ireland