Dunboyne Castle Hotel Wedding

June 9, 2020

Dunboyne wedding blog by Darren Byrne photography

Dunboyne Castle Hotel Wedding by Darren Byrne Photography

Wedding Venue in Meath

Dunboyne castle is a local venue near me and it really has everything you’d want when your searching for a wedding venue to suit your day. Having a big Georgian mansion as a drinks reception for family and bridal party and onto its modern ball room it really ticks all the boxes.

Name of ceremony location: Carmelite Catholic Church, Moate, Co.Westmeath

Reception Name & Location: Dunboyne Castle Hotel & Spa, Dunboyne, Co.Meath

Ceremony Officiant: Fr.Tony Gavin

Make Up Artist: Lida (Powder Room Girls)

Hair Stylist: Declan Chapple (Powder Room Girls)

Florist: Ethel of Castle Flowers, Moate, Co.Westmeath

Photographer: The fabulous Darren Byrne

Videographer: The Amazing Julianna O’Shea

Photobooth/Selfie Mirror: Shoot booth Selfie Mirror

Ceremony Musicians/Singers: Claire Sheerin on vocals and piano, her husband and son on violins.

Wedding Car/Transport: Unsure – wedding gift from my sister in law

Band / DJ: Electric Avenue for both

Speciality Entertainment (magician/hypnotist etc): Nil

How did you meet?: We met on a J1 in Huntington Beach, California. We were both in college at the time and one of my best friends and bridesmaids Rose met a group of Tipperary lads via Facebook on a J1 in Huntington Beach 2010 page and decided we’d live together for the summer (very dodgy looking back now haha!)

Tell us about the Proposal: We went to Fiji for New Years (We were living in New Zealand at the time) I didn’t know why he was acting so weird after dinner. He said he had to go to the toilet but he wanted to go to the room (you can guess what he said the reason being) and I was like why is he telling me this ha. I actually txt my bestie and maid of honour saying I think Tonys going to propose he’s being so weird and just told me he need to go to the toilet. Soooo he arrives back and says let’s go for a walk on the beach and I’m like Oh God this is it and he’s like go over there and I’ll take a picture so I walk out to the beach and it’s dusk so you were never going to get a decent picture so I turn around and my heart is going insane thinking he’s going to be there with a ring…..and I turn around…..and he’s there with his phone taking a picture. I’m like ok IM the crazy one reading waaayyy too much into this. What I didn’t realise is that a group of people had walked past and he wanted to do it away from anyone! So after they all walked past he says there’s another reason o wanted to come to the beach and gets down on one knee and asked me to marry him!

Tell us about THE dress :): I went to shops in New Zealand, Ireland and UK but I knew when I found my dress in New Zealand that it was what I wanted. How I chose it was I kept comparing every other dress to it. It wasn’t an oh my god this is the dress moment it was more like I Love this dress way more than any other I’ve seen or tried on. I bought it in Paperswan Bridal in Christchurch, New Zealand and it was called Daisy!

Dunboyne Castle Hotel wedding prep morning

Tell Us about the Suits!: The suits were all hired from Esquire in Limerick. Cannot recommend them enough, they were so nice and easy to deal with, gave so many extras with our suits incase anyone lost anything (highly likely with some of our groomsmen!) that night one of the groomsmen ripped the arse out of his trousers and had to change into a T-shirt and jeans from busting out the moves hahaha! The staff in Esquire thought it was hilarious and just said at least none of ye got arrested, no extra charges or anything, absolute legends! I can absolutely see how they have won awards for wedding wear!

Tell us about your ceremony: Our ceremony was quite low key. My cousin Anna passed away suddenly on Christmas Day and her funeral was actually on in the same church the day after my wedding day. It was very emotional but my family and friends and particularly our priest Fr.Tony who also did the funeral mass were fantastic for getting me through the day. I feel like my wedding day was surrounded by a lot of sadness but having my family and friends and my now husband by my side made it so much more bearable.

Favourite Memory Of The Day?: My favourite memory of the day…..I remember just looking down from the top table and seeing all the people that I love in one room. It was the most amazing minute I had to myself to enjoy the moment and be thankful for everyone who was there.

What one piece of advice would you give future brides: Don’t compare your wedding to anyone else’s, do what you want to do, it’s your day and you’ll hopefully only ever have one. Definitely take a minute to soak it all in if you get the chance to. I’d really recommend a photo booth or selfie mirror, one of my favourite things is looking back at all the silly drunken photos and comments made!

Why Did You Choose Your Photographer?: I went onto the HIGM website and looked up photographers and videographers and just liked Darren’s website. Both himself and Julianna were super nice to email with, no pressure and just got a good feeling from them.

Why did you choose your Videographer?: Same as above

Why Did you Choose your reception venue?: It was actually last on our list of venues to view but the others we thought we’d go for before Dunboyne didn’t live up to what we wanted. The wedding coordinator Kate was super helpful and really got us excited to have our wedding there. We loved the modern feel of the hotel and how clean it was and we loved the fact that we didn’t know many people who had been to weddings there.

Tell us about your honeymoon!: We stayed in Miami for three nights which was amazing and then a Caribbean cruise with Royal Caribbean on the Empress of the Seas. We went to the Bahamas, Cuba, Key West and the Cayman Islands. We had a ball and got suitably sun burnt ha! It was all organised seamlessly by Susan Ryan of travel counsellors in Nenagh. She was so amazing and thoughtful, even got us a scrabble picture frame made up of all the places we were going to. So easy to deal with, would definitely be booking with her again!