What made your venue “the one”?

We had originally planned to get married abroad and my best friend Joanne recommended we go and look at Segrave Barns. It was local to us in Louth so we booked in for a viewing. We were absolutely blown away by the venue and didn’t even need to view another one after seeing it. Every corner we turned on the tour we saw something new that we had never seen in another venue before. The owners John and Eugene have really mastered how to keep guests guessing and the party going on your wedding day. We were so impressed by the thought and consideration they had put in to every aspect of the day. We also loved that the venue is a bit different to your usual wedding venue.

Where did you get your Wedding Dress:

I went to three dress shops in total looking for my wedding dress. I had looked at each website before visiting the shops and had a few dresses picked out to try on. My mam and sister came with me to the bridal shops. My mam spotted the Nina dress by Bo&Luca in  Ivy&White Bridal Shop in Lisburn (https://www.ivyandwhite.com). As soon as I put it on I fell in love with it! I loved that it had a tiered skirt but was also quite slim in shape. I often wear halterneck dresses and I loved the idea of a bow at the neck. It had everything I was looking for! After that every dress I tried on didn’t compare to the Nina! I was helped by the lovely Kerry who owns the shop. Kerry gave me lots of ideas for styling the dress and I fell in love with the Bo&Luca accessories she had there!

Alterations were done by Ingrid in the Diamond Needle Studio in Westmeath (https://www.facebook.com/TheDiamondNeedleStudio/) This lady is an absolute magician when it comes to wedding dress alterations. She treats each dress as if it were her own wedding dress. The alterations she made were absolutely perfect and the dress fit me like a glove by the time she was finished!

  • Suits:

The groom, groomsmen and fathers of the bride and groom all got their suits in McKenna Man in Dundalk (https://mckennaman.com/). Brendan chose to go for a navy tuxedo and received great advice and attention to details from the staff in McKenna Man. Two of the groomsmen were coming from abroad including my brother who landed two days before the wedding from Australia. McKenna Man still managed to get him sorted with a perfect fit for the wedding within a very small time frame!

  • Bridesmaids dresses/Groomsmen suits/Wedding party outfits:

Both mother of the bride and mother of the groom bought their dresses in McElhinneys in BallyBofey Co. Donegal (https://www.mcelhinneys.com/)

My Mam’s beautiful headpiece was made by Millinery by Mairéad in Silverbridge Co. Down. Mairéad is so talented. Mairéad matched the headpiece perfectly to my Mam’s outfit. She also made the design process really exciting and special for my Mam with a full fitting and fabulous hat box to take the headpiece home in (https://millinerybymairead.com/).

The Bridesmaids dresses were from H&M and Topshop! I loved the idea of having two different tones of the same colour for my bridesmaid’s dresses. Two of the bridesmaids, Sarah and Sarah, wore a rich gold tone dress from Topshop’s bridesmaid collection. The other two bridesmaids, Joanne and Eimear, wore a lighter shade of gold from H&M’s bridesmaid collection. The bridesmaids wore gold strappy heels from Stradivarius and finished off the look with gold earrings I gave them as part of their bridesmaids gifts.

  • Shoes:

My shoes were the Misties Gold Barely There Heels by Dune London. I wanted to buy a pair of heels that I knew I would wear again on another occasion. The heels gave me a good amount of height and fit in with the overall gold theme we chose for the wedding.

  • Accessories:

I fell in love with Bo&Luca after getting by dress! I loved the subtle tones and the unique colour of the dress. I decided to go for the Bo&Luca Everley veil as I knew the tone of the veil and beading would match my dress. I absolutely loved the veil!

My earrings were the Ava earrings by Bo&Luca. My Bridal headpiece was Stella Crown by Bo&Luca, I absolutely love this headpiece, I would wear it every day if I had the chance. The beading and jewels on the earrings, veil and headpiece tied everything together for me.

  • Flowers:

Bridal Bouquets and Buttonholes were made by the fabulous Flowers by Gerda in Dundalk (https://www.facebook.com/FlowersByGerda/). Gerda really took on all the ideas that I had and made the most beautiful bouquets for the bridal party. I loved how they turned out and how they look in our photographs.

Our beautiful flowers in the venue were made by Mary Bell in Forever Flowers in Co. Louth (https://foreverflowersdrogheda.com/).  Mary did such a fantastic job on the flowers and made our venue look and feel so Christmassy. I absolutely loved the flowers she made for our ceremony, the tables and on our cake!

  • Cake:

Our delicious cake was made by the extremely talented Linda Donnelly. Linda’s cakes are not only beautiful they are also delicious! Linda gave use a vast selection of cakes to choose from for our tasting. We decided to go for a three tier cake with lemon drizzle and chocolate biscuit cake. To tie in with the décor in our venue, we went for a naked cake with flowers to tie in with the flowers on the tables. It turned out absolutely beautiful and the guests were raving about it!

Her business is Piece of Cake by Linda and instagram is https://www.instagram.com/piece_of_cake_by_linda/?hl=en

  • Cars: n/a

 

  • Wedding Favours:

For our wedding favours, we bought a scratch card for each guest. We placed the scratch cards into little cards we bought on Etsy (TheFavourHub: https://www.etsy.com/ie/shop/TheFavourHub?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=641951667) and left a Forrero Rocher on the plate beside them as a treat. Some guests had some winnings on the scratch cards which we were delighted to hear!

  • Stationery:

I used Templett to create wedding signs, menus, invites and save the dates. We didn’t post wedding invites, we decided to invite guests and collect RSVPs digitally. We used the wedding website SayI.Do to do this. We were assisted with our stationery graphics and design by Sarah Marry from Hestia Design (https://www.hestiadesign.ie/) Sarah is very talented at putting together beautiful graphics and she did a fantastic job of putting different decorations, foliage and pine cones together to create a design for our stationery.

  • Makeup:

Sarah Murphy (instagram: sm_pro_makeup, website:www.smpromakeup.ie)

Sarah did the makeup for me, the bridal party and my Mam.  Sarah had done my makeup a couple of times previously and I knew she was the makeup artist for me. For my bridal makeup I wanted a look that was really fresh and dewy. My skin is very pale so I knew I needed something bright and colourful to lift the colour which is why we chose the bold red lip. Sarah was brilliant for advice coming up to the wedding and during the makeup trials on how to best prepare my face for the big day. Sarah did an absolutely incredible job on every one of us and had us feeling our best!

  • Hair:

My friend Gavin Thomas from Colorcode (https://colorcode.ie/) in Dundalk did my bridal hair. Gavin is absolutely amazing at what he does and gave me great advice on how to get my hair healthy for the big day! I was absolutely thrilled with my hair on the day and I love how it looks in the wedding photographs.

Rita McShane (instagram: ritas_bridal_hair) helped with the finishing touches on my hair and did a fabulous job on the four bridesmaids hair. Rita is amazing!

  • Wedding Rings:

Our wedding rings were from Commins &Co in Dublin.

  • Ceremony/Reception Music: Our ceremony and reception music were done by the amazing Sarah Cairns and Christopher Rowland. They did an amazing job with the songs we chose for the ceremony and kept everyone entertained at the reception drinks and also our Day 2 which also took place in Segrave Barns.
  • Band/DJ:

Our band were Sway Social (http://www.swaysocialmusic.com/) We absolutely loved them on the day and so many guests came to us afterwards complimenting them. Our DJ was Wedding DJ Ireland Gerry McGee (https://www.weddingdjireland.ie/) who was also brilliant!

  • Photographer:

Our photographer was Pawel Bebenca (https://www.pawelbebenca.com/). Our friend Sarah recommended him to us and from looking at his Instagram we loved his natural and candid style of photography. We couldn’t be happier with our choice – Pawel is outstanding! He gave us such great direction on the day while also capturing the fun and energy from the day with some beautiful, natural and candid photographs.

  • Videographer:

Our videographer was Liutas Pictures Weddings (https://www.liutaspictures.ie/). This man is absolutely amazing. He did such a wonderful job capturing our day and watching it back is like watching a movie. He is so talented and a lovely person to have with you on your big day!

  • Planning/Styling:

We planned our wedding ourselves with the assistance of John and Eugene from Segrave Barns. We wanted a Christmas wedding after viewing our venue in the winter for the first time. We were blessed that our venue already has so many beautiful touches and decorations in place – the bulk of the styling was done for us! We were assisted with the finishing touches by our family and friends and by Sarah from Hestia Design.

  • Rentals/Decor:

One of our favourite rentals for the wedding was the phone guest book that we rented from WeBooked.com. This was a real hit with our guests! It was so much fun to listen back to the voicemails left by our guests on the day (and night) of the wedding! They make a fabulous addition to the other media we have from the wedding and it was a big talking point on the day.

We used Christmas trees to display the Polaroid pictures taken by our guests on the night. We also invested in some batons for the dancefloor. Segrave Barns have many of these additional touches already in place for their couples such as a charging phone booth, a sweet cart complete with jars and sweet bags for couples to use if they wish and baskets and signs for the bathroom supplies!

  • Anything else…

Our venue Segrave Barns is full of surprises for guests. One of the best parts of our day was Eugene the Singing Chef, who happens to be one of the owners of the venue! He really entertained our guests after the meal and set us all up for a great night of singing and dancing! Watching Eugene back on our wedding video left us sore from laughing and smiling.

 

How did you meet originally and get together?

We met over 15 years ago at a friend’s birthday party when we were just 15 ourselves. We were friends for many years and shared lots of mutual friends from school and our area. We went off about our ways to college in different places but both sets of friends went to Chicago in 2012 on a JI summer visa. Brendan contends he always had his eye on me but it wasn’t until we returned from our summer in Chicago that we got together and we have been together since!

How did the proposal go, if there was one?

The proposal took me by complete surprise! We had arranged to go away for the weekend to the Wineport Lodge in Westmeath as Brendan had just finished his accounting exams and I was going back to work after the summer break. When we arrived at Wineport Lodge, Brendan had arranged for the Pavillion there to be decorated with lanterns and candles and he proposed there beside the lake! It was a beautiful setting and we celebrated there for the weekend!

Could you sum up your wedding in a couple of sentences – how would you describe the look and feel of the day, the vibe?

We had an absolute blast at our wedding. It was the 9th of December so everyone was in good spirits coming up to Christmas. It was also the first time in a long time that we had seen some of our family in person, family had travelled from Australia and New York to be there! We really felt the love from every person there on the day and everyone was just ready to have a really good time!

The overall vibe of Segraves is cosy and rustic with lots of fun surprises thrown in for guests! The fact that we could stay there for the whole weekend with our nearest and dearest made it feel like home for us. We even gathered a group to go for a sea swim the next morning at the nearby beach which is walking distance from the venue!

What was important to you about your wedding – what were your priorities from the very beginning?

We really wanted to enjoy our wedding as much as we could and we wanted the same for our guests! We wanted a zero stress, laid back and enjoyable day! We wanted to keep everything very light and fun and this mindset had a big influence on the choices we made for our day in terms of music and entertainment. It’s one of the rare occasions you get everyone you love in the one room together so we wanted to make the day really special, enjoyable and entertaining for our guests!

From that first viewing we were just so excited to get married there and to share it with our friends and family. It had everything we were looking for and more!

 

What made the day really special and personal to you?

As part of our ceremony we did the Hand Fasting Ceremony. For the Hand Fasting, Cróna’s mam, Mary made a braid with wedding rings from Cróna’s grandmothers and Rosary beads that belonged to Brendan’s granddad plaited into it. Brendan also wore his grandfather’s hankerchief with a B embroidered on it that belonged to his grandfather, who was also called Brendan.

Cróna’s brother Brian and his girlfriend Aisling travelled from Melbourne to be at the wedding. It was the first time that a lot of the family had seen them in many years and this was really special.

Cróna’s family also travelled from New York to be there. We also hadn’t seen them in person in many years and this really added to our day and the excitement to see them all again!

Having our bridal party and close friends/family stay with us at the venue for the weekend was really special. We had our sea swim after breakfast the morning after the wedding. We could then relax and go to the pub to watch the rugby with everyone before having our day two celebration in the pub in Segraves. This meant we weren’t rushing off anywhere and we got to spend lots of time with everyone!

Joe, John and Eugene from Segrave Barns were instrumental in making our day special and personal to us! Nothing was too much trouble for them to pull together for us. Joe was such a supportive and lovely person to have with me as I prepared to walk down the aisle and he really couldn’t have done more for us!

Ann, our celebrant had some lovely ideas to personalize our ceremony. She had us write four things we love about eachother and email them to her separately. It wasn’t until the wedding ceremony that we heard what the other had written!

What advice would you give to other couples planning their day?

  • Brendan and I really enjoyed the days out in the run up to the wedding such as the day trip to choose the wedding rings, the food tasting etc. All of those events are part of your wedding too so make a day of it, go for dinner and a few drinks! We have lots of great memories of those special and exciting days in the run up to our wedding!
  • The day really goes by in a flash and it’s important to pause for a few moments throughout the day to take everything in, take a mental picture of the room, have a look at everyone and how they are enjoying themselves!
  • Spreadsheets are your best friend – spreadsheets for everything!

 

Where did you go/are you planning on going on honeymoon? Would you recommend it?

We went to Vietnam for three weeks on Honeymoon straight after our wedding. We had the most amazing time! We travelled from the North of Vietnam in Hanoi to the South and finished up in Ho Chi Ming city.