Michaela O’Shaughnessy and Cathal Egan were married at Cloughjordan House in Tipperary. Here, they share the details and advice from their big day.
LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
Cathal and I met in college during our first year at NUIG. We met on a night out in Galway with friends in the birthplace of many a Galway romance, CPs nightclub. We’ve been together for nearly 12 years.
PLANNING
By the time our wedding came around, we had been engaged for 3.5 years because of the pandemic. So it was challenging throughout the planning process because it felt like the day would never come. And also, being in New York trying to lock in vendors and everything without ever really getting to see or meet them ahead of time proved challenging. Thankfully my friends Maisie and Melissa, who work in the wedding industry in New York, were a massive help guiding me throughout it all and keeping me on track.
THE CEREMONY
We wanted our wedding to feel less like a wedding and more like a party where we could relax and have fun with all of our loved ones. We didn’t necessarily want the typical structure of an Irish wedding like a church ceremony, large bridal party, speeches, first dance and so on. We had a very quick 15 minute ceremony where our best friend Jennifer shared some funny stories of us from over the years, my sister read a poem that we loved, and then we exchanged short and sweet vows that we wrote ourselves. It was very intimate and personable, which was exactly what we wanted!
THE GUEST LIST
Our guest list was kept strictly to our family and closest friends so that it would feel intimate and we would get time to speak to every person there over the day and night. Having lived in New York for a while now, we both had so many friends who made the trip over to Ireland to celebrate with us, which genuinely meant the world to us.
FAVOURITE MOMENT
My favourite moment was walking into our ceremony and seeing all of our favourite people from near and far in one room. It felt like our two worlds in New York and Ireland were coming together to show their love for us, and it made me feel so thankful.
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