Clodagh and Benjamin were married at Cashel Palace in County Tipperary, Ireland, and this is one of those weddings where the detail rewards time spent with it. Planned by Tara Fay Events, the celebrations took place across a full weekend, with guests staying together at the hotel and the pace of events allowed to unfold naturally, from welcome drinks and shared meals to quieter moments in between.
Cashel Palace is a restored Palladian manor, and it brings a particular atmosphere to the weekend, grand but never overbearing. With everyone gathered in one place, the house feels lived in rather than styled, its rooms and grounds forming the backdrop to conversations, laughter and long tables rather than set pieces. It is easy to imagine how the weekend took shape here, with one moment flowing into the next rather than being tightly scheduled.
Clodagh’s dress sits at the heart of the story – she worked closely with couture designer Phillipa Lepley and her London atelier to create a bespoke gown, drawn to the silhouettes and fabrics of the 1940s and 1950s and to the traditional techniques still used in the studio. She writes with real feeling about her experience with Lepley and her team, from the early fittings to the care taken over fit and attention to detail and about how meaningful it was to have something made specifically for her.
It is such an immense pleasure to share this sublime wedding – enjoy this truly beautiful photography captured by Christine of Brosnan Photographic.
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The Venue & Hiring a Planner
Our wedding took place at Cashel Palace in Cashel, County Tipperary. I’ve always known I wanted to get married in Ireland – while it was technically a destination wedding for many of our guests, both my parents are Irish and I grew up spending summers in Co. Waterford, where our family has lived in Rossmore House for over 200 years.
Cashel Palace was never on my radar, as it had only recently reopened, but both our planner and my second cousin, who caters high-end events, encouraged us to go and see it. The minute we stepped foot in Cashel Palace, we knew it was the one. The setting is incredible, the food is unparalleled, the town is so charming and features one of Ireland’s most notable historical sites.
Cashel perfectly strike the balance of making you feel like family, while also seamlessly tending to your every need. The staff truly solidified our decision – they are the perfect example of Irish warmth and hospitality. They helped us coordinate an array of activities for our guests, that made it a full weekend experience, rather than just a wedding. Every element was able to occur on or near Cashel Palace’s property and we took over all of the rooms, allowing it to truly become ‘our home’ for the weekend.
We worked with Tara Fay Events. We met with several wedding planners early in our process, but Tara stood out given her experience, as well as her vast connections throughout Ireland. She was key to helping us source the rest of our vendors, including getting us access to our hair and make-up teams who usually work in the fashion industry, but will partner specifically with Tara for weddings.
The Dress
Phillipa Lepley
My wedding dress was by Phillipa Lepley. I worked directly with the Phillipa Lepley team at their atelier in London. Her team truly made the experience unforgettable.
The experience of having a dress made bespoke for you was incredible – from the first meeting to the last, they showed what dress making could and should be like.
They are the masters of simple elegance – they truly let their craftsmanship, and the quality of their work speak for itself. They even worked with me to customize the dress, so that I could have multiple looks throughout the night.
From spending hours coming up with a way to make the sleeves detachable without changing the neckline of the dress to creating a custom bustle that somehow hid my cathedral-length train completely, they went above and beyond to create the dress of my dreams.
Finding my dress was both the easiest and hardest part of wedding planning. As most of my friends and family can attest, I am a history and classic literature girl through and through. I wanted a dress that reflected more of a vintage aesthetic, while still having a modern edge to it.
I kept being drawn to gorgeous photos of dresses from the 1940s and ’50s, many of which were made from rich fabrics like duchess satin. As I began looking at different designers, I kept finding myself drawn to Phillipa Lepley dresses, as she’s one of the few designers that still uses traditional dressmaking techniques, as well as some of the stunning more traditional fabrics.
I was headed over to London for a wedding, so I figured I would make an appointment to see what her dresses were like in-person, and once I tried one on, I was done for. Phillipa and her team are so intentional about every detail, down to asking my husband’s height, so they could ensure that the dress length was ‘just so’, for when he spun me on the dance floor.
My trip to Phillipa Lepley was only my second time dress shopping, but it set the bar very high! Instead of making it easy on myself, I decided to try to find something similar in the US, but nothing compared.
After four months of trying to find an alternative in New York, including exploring fully custom dress options, I decided Phillipa Lepley was it and I’m so glad that I did.
I wore a lace-edge cathedral length veil from Carolina Herrera and my shoes were Jimmy Choo. I wore Fragonard as my wedding day scent. Earrings were by Jennifer Behr, my bracelet from Cartier and my clutch was by Roger Vivier.
My hair stylist was David Cashman and my makeup artist was Christine Lucignano.
The Bridesmaids
For the bridesmaids, I initially didn’t want to go for traditional bridesmaids’ dresses. I knew I wanted shades of cream, blue and greens to tie into the overall aesthetic of the wedding, but I was inclined to let my bridesmaids pick their own dresses. Then, I saw a picture of these two custom Brock Collection dresses that I completely fell in love with.
I spent hours trying to find something like them, but since Brock Collection stopped producing new collections, it was a fairly impossible task. I ended up DM’ing the bride who had them originally made and asked if she would sell them to me, and she agreed.
By a crazy turn of fate, a week later I was meeting with Patricia DeVoto of One/Of and happened to show her some of my wedding inspiration photos, and she noted that she had actually designed the two dresses while working at Brock Collection.
One of those ‘meant to be’ moments! Once I had those two dresses, which my maid of honour and sister in law wore, I built the rest of the dresses around them.
I wanted to make sure that the bridesmaids looked cohesive, so I found an Alfred Sung dress that mimicked the general cut of the Brock Collection dresses and went from there. They ended up in a mix of different styles and colors, but it all came together beautifully without feeling overly traditional.
Benjamin’s tuxedo was from Bergdorf Goodman and his shoes were Crockett & Jones.
The Ceremony
We used a 1930s-style Brenchley convertible for my arrival at the church, and the bridal party travelled in a vintage Asquith bus – all hired via All Events Limos.
We had a traditional Catholic ceremony in a local church in Cashel, St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, officiated by a priest. My father walked me down the aisle.
While we had a traditional church wedding, we wanted to incorporate some Irish elements into it, while also adding a more personal touch. Before the ceremony began, we used that time to do a traditional Irish ring warming, which was so special.
My aunt and uncle led the ring warming, bringing around our wedding bands to each guest and asking them to take a moment to hold them and imbue them with well-wishes for us and our marriage. It was truly such a special feeling to put on our wedding bands and know that each of them represented not only our vows for each other, but also all the love and support of our friends and family.
No Irish wedding would be complete without a bagpiper or Uilleann pipes. Since the church was less than a five-minute walk from Cashel Palace, we thought it would be fun to have a piper lead the guests back to the reception by foot. The initial plan was that he would take them down two small side streets, so as not to disrupt traffic or the locals, but on the day, he decided to add a little drama to the occasion and led our bridal car in a procession walking right down the middle of main street!
t was unbelievable looking behind us and seeing our guests processing by foot through the center of town, with all the locals coming out to cheer us on. We have to hand it to the Irish for joining in the fun, rather than being ticked off that we were holding up traffic!
One of our favourite moments came during our portrait session after the ceremony. Ireland is known for its wild countryside, dotted with cows, rolling hills and stunning ruins throughout. While we wanted our wedding to have an element of old-world elegance in keeping with Cashel Palace, which is a renovated Palladian manor home, we didn’t want to lose the element of fun and wild beauty that makes Ireland so special.
So, we asked our photographer if she would be willing to navigate through some cow fields with us to get some shots at an old monastic ruin called Hore Abbey, where Hozier incidentally filmed one of his music videos.
The gate to the field was locked that day, so we ended up having to squeeze through a fence and march through the cow fields by foot to get there! Cashel Palace’s slogan is “notable hospitality”, and I can tell you that their team took that to another level by helping me carry my dress over cow pats. It did make for the
most gorgeous shots though and we are so grateful that the weather cooperated. It was truly an unbelievable experience to get some time away from all our guests to soak up the fact that we were finally married, while surrounded by the quiet of the ancient ruins, with the Rock of Cashel sitting on the hill behind us. It will forever be a moment that we will cherish.
How They Met
We met in New York, where we’ve both been living for almost a decade. As with many modern love stories, we met on a dating app and exchanged a few early messages. Luckily, the night we matched, Ben was out with a few friends that incidentally went to college with at Georgetown.
With their encouragement, he swiftly asked me out to a Georgetown basketball game at Madison Square Garden two days later, so that’s where we had our first date. Neither of us remember much about the game, as we fell into easy conversation and quickly put together that we had tons of overlaps, including him spending much of his childhood visiting his cousin in Princeton, minutes from where I went to high school. After the game, we went to dinner at a since-closed French institution in Chelsea, Le Singe Vert.
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It was a memorable dinner, during which he treated me to a gorgeous bottle of French wine, which incidentally was the same type we served at our rehearsal dinner and which we got to taste during our honeymoon in Provence.
Georgetown has always been an important part of our relationship, from our first date to the mutual friends that made our relationship so easy. Ben decided that Washington, D.C. was the natural place to propose, so he convinced me to head down a day early for my ten-year college reunion and proposed in a little garden with beautiful willow tree overlooking the reflecting pool.
He had organised for a photographer to be hiding nearby to capture the moment, so we got take some special photographs around the monuments before a celebratory dinner that evening. The best part was that the next day, we got to celebrate with almost all of my closest friends. We like to say that Georgetown threw us the best engagement party possible, with a live band and all.
We were engaged for just over a year, but we’d been together for more than six.
The Reception
My mom has always been a wonderful host and chef, so we grew up helping her throw incredible dinner parties and themed events. She makes everything an experience. We love the warmth, fun, and elegance she brings to everything she does, so we really wanted to evoke the feeling of being at one of her fabulous dinner parties for the reception.
My dad is the proudest Irishman imaginable, so we also made sure to include plenty of Irish touches: oysters and Guinness at cocktail hour, a piper-led procession through the village, and a Sunday send-off at a 17th-century pub.
Our linens were hired from Total Event Rental and our embroidered dinner napkins were from Monograms By Gram.
I knew fairly immediately that I wanted Mark Grehan of The Garden to be our florist, as I’ve always loved going into his store in Dublin. Luckily, our planner Tara Fay and he work closely, so she was able to lock him in quickly! Our reception florals included fruit and moss spilling onto the tables, with tall, tapered candles on long tables, inspired by a dinner held by de Gournay.
Trees and lavender bushes were scattered throughout to evoke an ‘orangerie’ feel to match the venue’s sky lights and trellised entryway. Lighting sought to recreate tree shadows on the wall to amplify the trees throughout the room.
We enjoyed fabulous food courtesy of Cashel Palace’s incredible in-house team. We really wanted to feature Irish culture throughout the weekend, so our guests got a taste of the country, while also getting to celebrate with us.
As huge foodies, we were excited at the idea of getting to feature Michelin-level, farm-to-table food throughout the weekend. The number of people who commented on the quality of the food was unbelievable.
My parents live across from a gorgeous oyster farm in Waterford, and one of our favorite Irish delicacies is pairing oysters with Guinness, so we added a custom oyster and Guinness bar during cocktail hour for our guests. It’s an unusual pairing, but one that is simply perfect. It was so fun to see how Tara’s team pulled it together, displaying it on foraged seaweed and whiskey barrels.
Our ‘cake’ was made of tiers of cheese, decorated with fresh fruit, which was displayed on a moss and flower-covered table, and later served as accompaniments during the reception.
We designed the invitation suite ourselves with the help of Ben’s mom, who is a graphic designer, and the incredible printing team at Buckhead Printery.
The suite featured original artwork from Cashel Palace’s collection, a 17th-century etching of the Rock of Cashel, and a painting that we gained permission to use from the artist’s estate (a lovely full-circle moment as the painting turned out to have Georgetown connections, just like us.)
We also created a custom crest by blending elements of both our family crests, which appeared throughout the weekend, including on our embroidered napkins.
Another detail that I loved was our escort cards – given my family has moved all over the world, there were guests from so many phases of our lives present during the wedding weekend.
We wanted to give everyone a chance to get to know us as a couple a little bit better, so each table ‘number’ was an antique print of the national or state flower of a place that one of us has lived, or that is special to us.
On the back of each escort card, we included a fun fact about us and that place, which the table might not know. It gave everyone some fun discussion topics at dinner.
Words of Wedded Wisdom
Stay true to your vision. Your wedding day should be a reflection of you as a couple, and not of the latest trends you see on Instagram or Pinterest.
That’s what ultimately makes a wedding unique, when the day reflects and augments the love story being celebrated.
While we didn’t have any formal additional ceremonies, we did host events throughout the weekend that felt ceremonial in their own way, from our welcome drinks in the walled garden to a traditional Sunday send-off at TJ Ryan’s, a 17th-century pub still in operation. We really wanted the entire weekend to feel like a celebration of heritage, place, and community.
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