Sinead & William got married in Newcastle, Athenry & their reception followed in The Hardiman, formerly Meyrick Hotel, Galway City. They had a fabulous day, they were the perfect couple in every way & they were organised & had allowed ample time for their stop offs & photographs. As a result the day went so smoothly & it was a genuine pleasure to work them & their families & bridal party. This is their story …
When & where did you both meet?
We met at a mutual friend’s pool party when we both lived in Doha, Qatar in summer 2014. We managed to squeeze in a few dates and not long after, William was transferred to UAE (equivalent of Dublin to London). Luckily flights were not too expensive an this was the start of two years travelling back and forth and collecting plenty of stamps in our passports before I made the move permanently to Dubai.
Who & proposed & how did they do it?
We had booked a stay in one of the most beautiful hotels in Dubai before I was to travel home for the summer. William arranged a table that had been set up with rose petals and roses in a private area for dinner. After dinner he got down on one knee and popped the question. This was followed by phone calls around the world to our families!
How long were you planning your wedding?
We got engaged in July 2018, I was straight on the phone in the day or two after our engagement to arrange hotel viewings for my trip hone to see if summer 2019 was a possibility. We were so fortunate to get the perfect weekend between the Arts Festival and Galway Races (with lots of people travelling to Ireland for the wedding we wanted to be sure there would be plenty of entertainment outside of our own festivities and also show Galway to it’s absolute full potential!) and in the Meyrick hotel, our dream venue so we had exactly 1 year of planning.
Do you have a top tip either specific or general about the day?
Plenty of lists and preparation before the day really made all the difference. Knowing we could see at a glance if anything was outstanding and had to be followed up. Preparation of the smaller details such as the morning after in the hotel and day 2 etc saves running around on the morning gathering bits, even though with all my planning I forgot to bring a hairbrush to the hotel and had to try and mask my nest of back combed hair with a long bow J so mostly, don’t forget your hairbrush!
Is there anything that you’d do differently if you were planning your wedding day again?
Aside from wishing the ceremony could start at 9am to get even more time with our amazing family and friends we had no regrets or anything we wanted to change. As long as you make decisions that work for you as a couple there should be no reason to wish to do things differently.
Who did your hair & makeup?
I was very lucky to have two amazingly talented ladies getting me ready. Sarah Mason did my hair and Natalyia Duffy did my make up. They were both fantastic to have in our house on the morning. They provided a perfect balance of excitement for our day as well as being extremely calming influences.
Where did you get your cake, car(s), flowers?
Our cake was from Sandra’s Cake house. It was both stunning and delicious!
Our wedding car was from Heritage Wedding Cars. It was a beautiful car and we were blessed with a wonderful chauffeur who was very quickly dubbed my second bridesmaid!
All the flowers were done by my superbly talented aunt, Veronica.
Who was your videographer?
Our videographer was Mark Brady of “Brady Wedding Films”. A wonderful videographer with some surprises up his sleeve. (You’ll have to check his website to find them!)
Where did you go on honeymoon?
We went to Maldives for our honeymoon and it was the perfect spot for post wedding relaxation and recharge, the all you can eat buffet was also welcomed with the dress diet over J
Anything else that you’d like to share?
Just prepare and plan as much as you can in the months leading up. Try to have everything dropped to venue or at least boxed up and ready 4 or 5 days before the wedding and then you can pretty much switch off from planning and just enjoy the tanning, nails and all your guests starting to arrive.
There will inevitably be moments of stress during the planning but try to keep in mind why you are doing it and enjoy the planning process because when it’s done it’s done, and you might just miss it a tiny bit!
Photography by Deirdre Langan Photography
