After meeting in the mountains south of California over five years ago, Anna married Jonathan on a beautiful summers day in Carlingford. They have very kindly shared with us, their story and wedding video, which was captured by Garry McGovern of Simply Wedding Videos. We hope you enjoy it as much as we have, and watch out for the utterly cute page boys!Jonathan and I met during a church college retreat in January 2007. We hadn’t spoken the whole trip until the final day when Jonathan came up to me and asked “Since you’re from Ireland, do you listen to U2?” That question started a three hour conversation on our journey home, Jonathan thought I talked a lot! We became good friends and hung out for a few months before making our relationship official that summer. As soon as it became official I jetted back home to Ireland and then on to South Africa, so we had a long distance romance with the help of Skype! During the lunch Jonathan stood up and started thanking everyone for coming, at this point I had no idea what was happening! He asked me to stand up and then pulls out a sign he had made in fairy lights that said, “Will you marry me?” The front door opened and a bunch of my college friends we all there! He got down on one knee, I said Yes and he put a stunning ring on my finger! I was quite emotional and surprised! His parents then appeared with a cake that read ‘Congratulations!’ and lunch soon turned into a big party! In early January I flew back home and started planning the wedding.
When it came to planning their wedding, Anna and Jonathan knew they wanted it to be in Ireland and after much researching and a visit to the Holy Trinity Heritage Centre in Carlingford and Darver Castle, they chose these two venues as they were not only local, but they had heard many good reports about the hotel and their very friendly and professional staff. With the date and location chosen the couple notified all their American friends so that they could start planning their holidays and Anna turned her thoughts to planning the smaller details of the day.
The big highlight of the day was when Jonathan altered the song Galway Girl to be Dundalk Girl and sung it in front of everyone during the speeches.
Our wedding was so much fun! We are a not-so-serious type couple,and love to have fun, so our wedding represented us well. So we did our own sweet buffet, we had a kid’s table with lots of games and colours, and we had a photo booth that our photographer Magda Lukas helped set up, and we brought along some props (which people ended up wearing throughout the night), we had a band that not only played regular music but also a ceili, this was so much fun and kept everyone on the dance floor all night.
The wedding was styled with many influences, vintage touches, Irish craic and even a touch of Chinese, in reference to Jonathan’s parents who are from Singapore. Their stationery was branded with a bespoke symbol, designed for the couple with the Claddagh and the Chinese symbol for love. Fashion on the day was also given little touches of fun with two of the pretty little flower girls wearing fairy wings and the groom’s party wearing Converse and flat caps.
Anna & Jonathan’s Wedding Details
Ceremony: Holy Trinity Heritage Centre, CarlingfordReception: Darver Castle, Louth
Wedding Dress: Ardee Bridal House, Ardee
Bridesmaid Dresses: Elody Bride, Newry
Grooms wear: Tony McDonald, Dundalk
Photographer: Magda Lukas
Wedding cake: Friend of the family, Mary Murphy
Flowers: Fab Fleurs
Wedding Cars: Quinns Taxi’s, Dundalk
Videographer: Simply Wedding Videos
Entertainment: Big Jigs
Thanks again to Anna and Jonathan for sharing their day with us, and a sincere thanks to Garry from Simply Wedding Videos.
