A Limerick Wedding at Adare Manor

We got married on September 8, 2023, in Adare in Co Limerick. We’re both from Limerick.Declan is from Adare parish adn I’m from a neighbouring parish, called Kilcornan. We got married in the local church in Adare and had the afters in Adare Manor.We are so lucky too have one of the most amazing hotels in the world on our doorstep.

It was a big wedding. Look, it was local, so it was always going to be big, and then, of course, Declan plays GAA, and with all GAA weddings come big numbers. And we both come from big Irish families, and family is critically important to us. Because we met so young, we have had the same friend group since school, so it was a really big celebration.

We wanted to keep as much as we could local. For us, we thought it would be lovely to have a real limerick wedding in every sense, to be able to say that everything – from the flowers to the bands – is from Limerick.

When picking a date, you can be limited when it comes to inter-county hurling and club hurling, especially with the split season. You’ve only got a few weeks to choose from. I love August and September, and we were lucky that we got a week where there weren’t that many matches; it was a break between the county and the club season.Also, my parents got married on September 7, so that worked out nicely.

The maddest thing of all was the weather. It was 28C. Neither declan nor I like the sun. We’re as pale as you go. So, it was just hilarious. We got married on the warmest day of the year. At one point, the hotel rang me and asked if we wanted them to set up sunscreen stations! It was mad.

I had a stunning dress, which was made by Helen Cody, a Dublin-based designer. Helen Cody I actually found the whole idea of finding a dress so hard, because there are so many stunning options, I couldn’t choose at all. So,I worked with helen,and I enjoyed that so much. I went all out; there were ostrich feathers, bows, and everything. I loved it so much.

The day was so hot that I was lucky I had my hair up in a high bun, away from my neck and face, as I was sweating. I also had a long cathedral veil and long opera gloves, which I had to ditch early on, as well.

The night before the wedding, we brought all our immediate family to Adare Manor for the night. We had a beautiful meal at 1826 in Adare village and then went back to the hotel. We had a great night, and it was lovely to have that time together with just our families.