Happy couple to tie knot on same day restrictions eased
CHRISTMAS will come early for one Belfast couple when they tie the knot tomorrow — the same day as Northern Ireland’s lockdown restrictions ease.
Clare O’hara (30) says she breathed a huge sigh of relief last week when Stormont ministers confirmed the planned relaxations of Covid-19 regulations from December 11.
The Castlewellan native will marry Damian Mcgill (32), who is originally from Ballycastle, at Belfast City Hall in front of a small group of family and friends
exactly three years after they first met.
Their wedding day will coincide with the end of the majority of the measures introduced by the Executive as part of a twoweek circuit breaker lockdown in an attempt to slow down the spread of coronavirus and lower the ‘R’ number.
Luckily for Clare and Damian their chosen date also marks the lifting of the 25 people attendance cap at weddings.
From tomorrow onwards the number of people attending wedding ceremonies and civil partnerships will be determined by the place of worship, or venue, subject to risk assessment.
“Given that we’ve chosen the day that everything opens up again, we’re pretty sure all will go to plan,” an excited bride-to-be Clare told the Belfast Telegraph.
“We were always planning to have a small wedding anyway with just 45 people, but with some of our guests deciding to isolate for two weeks before they go home for Christmas we’re now down to 35.”
In fact Clare and Damian hadn’t even planned to marry at all this year.
Instead the couple had set their sights on saving up to buy a house until the passing of a close family member prompted them to review their plans. “We got engaged on December 13 last year but we thought it would be a good few years before we would even start to plan our wedding,” Clare explained.
“Sadly my grandad died in April of this year and because things were much stricter then as it was in the first lockdown, it was only close family in attendance which was actually really intimate and personal.
“A couple of months later I turned to Damian one day and said that maybe we should get married at the end of the year.
“My mum is the youngest of 19 children so I have a massive family and Damian is quite shy so we just decided to go ahead and do it,” she added.
With a date in the diary for a smaller ceremony that would also mark their third anniversary together, the couple started to make plans and even when the circuit breaker began on November 27, they were still hopeful their big day would be saved.
“Obviously we never thought there might be another lockdown so close to the day.
“We were still determined to go ahead at City Hall where we had our first date, with a reception afterwards at the Malone Lodge Hotel,” Clare said.
“We were never going to postpone the wedding even if meant having to change the reception venue because in the nicest possible way we just wanted to get it over and done with.
“Once it was confirmed last week that the restrictions would be lifted just in time we went into panic mode to try to get everything sorted in a week but thankfully it’s all coming together. We’re both quite laid back people and just glad to know that our wedding is definitely happening tomorrow — it’s an early Christmas present,” she added.