A Wonderful Wedding With Lots of Greenery

Real Weddings

“We decided on lots of greenery, colours of maroon/purple (to connect with Galway), white and dusty pink shades so it wouldn’t look too Christmassy!”

 

Names: Ruth Meade and Shane Kelly

Length of engagement:  20 months

Wedding Date: 15.2.19

Wedding location: Clonabreany House

Videographer: Richard Dwyer – Spinning Yarns Production

 

 

 

We met… in college in NUI Galway. We met during Rag Week in the February, no contact until the September when as fate would have it we ended up living beside each other and that was that! Spent many years driving between Meath (where I, Ruth am from) and Galway (where Shane is from), eventually was able to drag him east to Meath!

 

 

Our proposal… was simple but incredibly thoughtful! Myself and my friend went out for the day, Shane had been working nights so we hadn’t seen each other properly in over two weeks! Shane offered to cook dinner and I happily complied! I came home from being out with my friend, got into my jammies, lit the fire and got comfy. Shane cooked a lovely dinner and called me into the kitchen to see him torch the crème brulees he made (my favourite dessert!)! Walked in and saw the most beautiful bunch of flowers, turned around and there he was on the one knee! Can’t remember a thing he said to me, I was crying so much! That night we went out to tell my family and the next day we went down to Galway to share the news with his family. The next few days were amazing set out all by Shane! We are huge foodies so it has always been a dream of mine to go to Neven Maguire’s in Blacklion! Shane had it all booked; the dinner, the night’s stay and breakfast! They kindly gave us a signed copy of Nevens new book as an engagement present. From there we went onto Westport, where we wined and dined and even ended up climbing Croagh Patrick!

 

Our wedding theme/colours… We got married in February so I didn’t want any really bright colours, I wanted to keep it quite subtle and natural. I wanted us to blend into the beauty of nature at that time of year. The first thing I bought for my wedding was the bridesmaid dresses; I knew that I wanted a forest green colour, I saw a dress on Coast and although it was very difficult to track down four of them (sold out everywhere) I got them! Everyone thought I was mad buying them so early on and before I had even got my dress but I adored the colour and I am so glad I did as I never saw anything better than them! So the bridesmaid dresses really set the tone for the colour scheme. The flowers where probably the most important thing to me – my friend had just got married in Loughcrew and having seen her flowers I quickly got the number of her florist! We decided on lots of greenery, colours of maroon/purple (to connect with Galway), white and dusty pink shades so it wouldn’t look too Christmassy! So those were the colours that prevailed throughout our wedding; forest green, white, maroon (groomsmen wore maroon bow ties for Galway!) and dusty pinks.

 

 

Things we DIY’d/made ourselves… Shane is very good at woodwork so he made a beautiful wooden post box for all our cards and even engraved it with our initials that we had used on our wedding invites and the date. We also printed lots and lots of photo in polaroid style and had them hanging off copper wires across one of the main windows in Clonabreany House, I have to say it looked lovely!

 

My dress… I got my dress in Love Ellie Bridal in Virginia and I cannot speak more highly of Laura and Ellen! The whole experience was amazing; they made you feel so at ease and offered such good advice. My dress was not what I had expected to go for but on reflection it was very me! It was incredible simple, ivory satin, body hugging with a Chantilly lace back and belt around the middle. I have never seen it on anyone else to this day.

 

 

My hair and make up… I knew exactly who I wanted to do my hair and makeup, the same girls that did my sisters and aunts wedding – the lovely girls in Chocolate Fringe in Dunshauglin. They were both incredible and made me feel so at ease.

 

His suit… Shane went for a classic look, we thought it suited the style we were going for and a classic tux never ages! Shane wore a classic tux with black stud buttons and a black bowtie.

 

What our bridal party wore… bridesmaids wore Coast bardot dresses that were forest green in colour and tea length. They all wore different shoes of varying colours of gold and different accessories (I didn’t want them looking to matchy matchy!).

 

Our ceremony… was in my local church. We had contemplated getting married in Clonabreany but I couldn’t break from tradition and all the memories I have of my local church!

 

 

We chose our videographer because… we were told about Richard by our photographer. We had a look at his website and Facebook page and proceeded to book him.

 

We chose our venue because… We never wanted a “hotel” wedding. We did look into having a marquee on my farm but we just felt it was going to be too much work and pressure! So Clonabreany was ideal; it is only 30 minutes from the church, is set in gorgeous rural Meath so had that farm aspect and a stunning marque which was draped in fairy lights to mirror the fairy lights on the trees lining the avenue at Clonabreany. It also had the most beautiful spots for photographs and the accommodation is beautiful.

 

Our menu… Myself and Shane are huge foodies so food was probably top of our list when deciding on our venue, and we weren’t disappointed! We had three courses, we decided to skip the soup course as we don’t care for it ourselves at weddings! To start we had a delicate goats cheese tartlet with red onion chutney, for mains it was a choice between a fillet of beef (cooked to your liking!) or salmon. Both were to die for but when you can get a fillet cooked to your liking how could you pass it up! Dessert was indulgent; dark chocolate fondant with peanut butter ice-cream, it was incredible!

 

 

Our honeymoon… We are going on our honeymoon in July – we are headed to Peru to do the Inca trail and the Amazon and then up to Cancun in Mexico for a chilled out few days before going home via Washington!

 

 

My favourite part of the wedding day… Having all our favourite people in the one room, that will probably never happen again!

 

My piece of advice for other couples… Enjoy every minute, it really is the best day ever and worth every bit of blood, sweat and tears that goes into it!

 

Our wedding was 10 years to the day that we first kissed! We took it as a sign and booked that day! It was also the day before Valentine’s Day!

 

 

Suppliers

Wedding venue: Clonabreany House | Photographer: Paul Keeling | Videographer: Richard Dwyer @ Spinning Yarns | Musician and DJ: Pink Champagne | Hair: Nikki @ Chocolate Fringe Dunshaughlin | Makeup: Ruth @ Chocolate Fringe Dunshaughlin | Dress: Love Ellie Bridal Virginia | Suit: Man’s Shop Trim | Bridesmaids dresses: Coast | Groomsmen outfits: Man’s Shop Trim | Cake: Sheridan’s Cheese Mongers | Celebrant: Parish Priest