Pretend wedding is ‘almost’ perfect
A COUPLE staged an “almost” wedding day on the date they were due to get married before coronavirus wrecked their plans.
Would-be guests left handwritten well-wishes in an Almost Mr and Mrs box outside the home of Grace Corrigan, 26, and 33-year-old Martin O’reilly.
They were due to celebrate their wedding with 250 people in Darver Castle, Co Louth, last Saturday before flying off on honeymoon to Dubai and Bali.
The couple got engaged more than two years ago but put the wedding on the long finger until they finished building their dream home in Shercock, Co Cavan.
Grace, who is a pediatric nurse, and Martin, a lab technician, decided to hold a pretend event instead of moping about on what would have been their big day.
She said: “I think it was more stressful when we didn’t know back in March what was going to happen but once we made the decision to postpone the wedding,
Couple outside home everything was so much easier. Darver Castle staff were amazing and nothing was too much trouble for them and all the suppliers had no problem changing the date to April next year.
“We couldn’t let the day go by so I got a white dress and a veil with Nearly Mrs O’reilly on it and Martin wore a suit.
“We hung pictures of us as babies outside and a friend of mine, who is a home economics teacher, made us a cake.
“We put the Mr and Mrs box outside and I scribbled the word ‘Almost’ on it and friends and relatives left us some lovely messages.
“We invited immediate family, just our parents and siblings, over for a cup of tea and surprised them with the mini-event.
“Martin has a vintage 1986 car and we plastered it in ribbons for the day too.
“Of course we were sad but we decided to make the most out of the day. This mini-day was a great practice run.”