Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
A leap for love
February 29 wedding ‘was an amazing day, the best ever’
It’st’sadateforChapelhallcoupleadateforChapelhallcouple Laura McMullan and Joe Feeney – as they tied the knot on the most unusual day on the calendar.
The newlyweds were married on February 29, choosing leap year day for their special celebration.
Also celebrating last Saturday were several Monklands residents with birthdays which only come round once every four years.
Newlyweds Laura and Joe Feeney have an especially memorable wedding anniversary – and will be waiting four years to celebrate it exactly for the first time.
The Chapelhall couple chose Saturday’s leap year day, February 29, to exchange vows as husband and wife at St Aloysius church in their home village.
Laura, nee McMullan, and Joe began planning their big day around seven months ago; and after realising the 2020 calendar has an extra day, decided to choose it for their celebration.
They were married by Father Martin Delaney, and celebrated with a meal for 37 relatives and friends at the Tudor Hotel in Airdrie, followed by more loved ones joining them to party away the leap-year night at their reception.
Bride Laura said: “We’d been looking at dates and saw a special offer for somewhere else that flagged up that 2020 is a leap year.
“We really wanted to book the Tudor so we thought if they had that date, we’d go with it – it’s an unusual date and we just thought it was a wee bit different.
“There were a few comments when we told people the date, with some saying there are only 28 days in February and others joking that Joe only has to buy an anniversary gift once every four years!”
Hairdresser Laura, who is originally from Sikeside, first met Joe, a forklift truck driver who is from Kirkshaws, at a night out in Coatbridge in 2015.
They got engaged two years ago when Joe popped the question during a visit to the Turnberry Lighthouse hotel. In June 2018 they welcomed baby daughter Lily into the world.
Now aged 20 months, Lily was her parents’ flower girl and the couple’s nephew, Tommy Feeney, was their page boy; while Laura’s sister Nicola and Joe’s brother Stephen were respectively maid of honour and best man.
The newlyweds had an overnight at Ingliston following the wedding and are now looking forward to a honeymoon in Lanzarote in May.
Laura said: “It was an amazing day, the best ever – it was everything we wished for and more. We even had really good weather as it was sunny and stayed dry all day, and then as soon as we arrived at the Tudor, it started snowing!
“I think we’ll celebrate our anniversary on the 28th in non- leap years, so that it’s still in February; and we’ll definitely have to do something special when February 29 comes round, like going on holiday or having a nice weekend away.”
Laura and Joe were among several Advertiser readers celebrating birthdays and special occasions on February 29, with several on our Facebook page sharing excitement about their family occasions.
Birthday girl Claire Close turned 28 on Saturday, marking the seventh time she has been able to celebrate her birthday on leap year day; but says there was a bigger celebration in her Gartlea household this week.
She told the Advertiser: “My daughter, Lilah, had her first birthday last Tuesday so it’s all about her birthday now!
“We went out for a family lunch for that, and it will be nice for us to have our birthdays a few days apart from now on.”
Home support worker Claire said: “I was working on Saturday morning, and a few of the service users knew it was my birthday so I got some cards and chocolates; and there were lots of jokes about me being at work on my seventh birthday!
“Everybody makes a big deal about the date when it’s a leap year, but it doesn’t feel like a big occasion as I celebrate every year, usually on March 1.
“The only time the date has caused some confusion was at my 18th birthday, which wasn’t a leap year – I went to the pub with my friends on February 28 and the staff on the door were a bit confused, but they let me in when they realised it was my birthday and the date didn’t exist that year.”
Claire, who is also mum to two-year-old Blake, is now looking forward to another 2020 special occasion, as she will be getting married to fiance Alan in August.
She added of Saturday’s leap day: “I usually get a birthday card from somebody each year with ‘you are five’ or ‘you are six’ on it, but somehow nobody got me a seventh birthday card this year!
“There was a boy in my year at high school whose birthday was also February 29; one of our teachers, who was in her 60s, always said she’d never met anybody with a leap year birthday and then had two of us in the same class.”
Airdrie youngster Caitlin Matusavage was officially celebrating her “second” birthday – along with younger brother Callum, four, and her schoolfriends from Victoria Primary.
Caitlin turned eight on February 29 and celebrated marking her special day on the exact date with a busy party at Gravit8 trampoline centre in Chapelhall.
Mum Laura said: “She’s adjusting as she gets older to the fact that there isn’t a February 29 every year and that we normally celebrate on the 28th instead so that her birthday is still in February, and this year has been explaining it to a few friends in class.
“When people asked how old she would be on her birthday, she’d ask, ‘should I say two or eight?’ – we’ve told her to go with whichever she wants to say!”
Wedding picture by Scott and Jolene Walker of Forza Photography.
There were a few comments when we told people the date, with some saying that Joe only has to buy an anniversary gift once every four years! Bride Laura