Our festival of LOVE
This Irish fairytale wedding comes to you from the imagination of Audrey and Simon and was captured through the lens of the very talented Wonder and Magic. The couple’s unique and stunning venue is actually the groom’s parents’ home, otherwise known as Cahernorry Church and Gardens in Co Limerick, which you may have spotted on RTÉ’s Home of the Year in 2019.
A truly personal and budgetfriendly summer wedding featuring a dreamy gold wedding dress and the most beautiful lavender bouquets, this is testament to what can be achieved when friends and family band together in the name of love.
Audrey tells us that she and Simon were friends for a while before they officially became a couple. ‘We fancied each other secretly for some time without the other knowing, before we got together at Bloc festival in England in 2011,’ she tells us. ‘There was some sneaky kissing without our friends knowing during that weekend! Once back home, we dated in secret before we admitted we were seeing each other to our friends – which was kind of romantic I guess – and we’ve been together ever since.’
Three years after the couple got together and after a fun weekend at Glastonbury, Simon popped the question. ‘After five nights of sleeping in a tent in roasting heat, we went to Bath to relax,’ Audrey tells us. ‘Unfortunately, I was suffering from a stomach flu after the festival and was feeling far from starry-eyed and romantic when Simon popped the question in a park in Bath. It helped distract me enough from feeling sick to manage a couple of glasses of bubbles to celebrate!’
Audrey’s wedding dress was adorned with a gold bodice and came from Folkster Bridal. She matched it with a beautiful lavender bouquet that she made herself using lavender from fields in Wexford. Her gold wedding shoes were pre-loved Jimmy Choos from eBay.
Audrey tells us that she and Simon really wanted their wedding to have a ‘relaxed, chilled, garden party sort of feel. We knew that the formal approach wasn’t our style, and our love for festivals definitely influenced our taste. We ended up with what I would describe as a fancy BBQ party.’
The couple chose to have a symbolic ceremony with handfasting, music and poetry in the stone circle of Cahernorry Church and Gardens, in front of 120 of their nearest and dearest.
As they were saving for a deposit for their first home while planning their wedding, keeping on top of their budget was hugely important to them. ‘Equally as important was having a day that reflected what we love, and that was having fun with our friends and family,’ Audrey says. ‘Tradition was never important to us, so we took elements from a traditional wedding and focused on what we felt it was all about – making a promise to love and support each other in front of our loved ones, followed by a good old party. So that’s what we did.
‘Simon is a DJ and organises music nights [he’s one half of Mulljoy] outside of his business as a designer, so we utilised what we had,’ Audrey tells us. ‘Our friend Laobhaise is a wedding singer so she sang at our ceremony, while another friend did our amazing wedding video. Entrees and sides were provided by our chef friend, Simon’s relative provided bar services, music was provided by DJ friends, and so many of our friends and family helped to decorate the gardens and prepare for the big day in the week beforehand. It really felt like our day was actually created by our friends and family, which made it feel all that more unique and personal to us.’
Simon’s ring was a bespoke creation by artist Pierse Healy and Audrey chose to keep her custommade engagement ring from Alchemy Jewellery as her wedding band because she loved it so much.
They chose to host their wedding at Simon’s parents home, and it’s easy to see why. ‘His parents, Kathleen and Des Kingston, completely restored and renovated the beautiful old church and gardens to what it is now, so it was the obvious choice for us,’ Audrey tells us. As well as the Home of the Year appearance, Des won Super Garden and featured at Bloom. ‘There is a beautiful little stone circle in one part of the garden that was perfect for a little ceremony, and everything flowed from there.’
Audrey and Simon’s advice for engaged couples is to ‘know what is the most important element for you and don’t lose sight of that. We both wanted something unique for our day, which we got, but it was not easy. We could have gone for the more traditional option which would have meant less work and stress – organising everything from toilets to generators and glassware – but it wouldn’t have felt right for us in the end.’
The couple ended their fairytale day with a beautiful bonfire where they gathered to roast smores, which were handmade wedding favours for each of the guests.