LOVE IS IN THE AIR
THEY say a wedding can be the making of another wedding. And that was true in a sense for Keith Keenan and Anne- Marie Cullen who first met as children at a family wedding in Sligo Cathedral.
Little did they know that decades later the pair would be walking down the ailse together as man and wife. As Keith explains: “My brother Martin married Anne- Marie’s aunt Lucia in 1985. Martin died tragically in a car crash in 1991. At his wedding I was just three and Anne- Marie was five.”
“There is a photograph of the wedding party outside the Cathedral and a little boy with curly hair is turning towards a little girl, and that was me chatting up my future wife!” jokes Keith.
Keith says that the pair did not know each other as teens.
“I moved away to Galway but when I came home to Sligo at 23 I met Anne- Marie out one night and we made the connection.” As for Anne- Marie she knew that fateful night in Fiddler’s that Keith would be the one.
“I knew that first night that I would marry Keith.
“There was just something that drew me to him. Luckily he felt the same,” she says.
As luck would have it, the couple won a wedding competition to marry in Markree Castle where they celebrated together with 170 guests at a lavish ceremony in 2008.
Civil Servant Anne- Marie is from Rosses Point while Keith who works in Homeland is from Sligo town.
But they have now settled in Coolaney with their two children, Ellie, ( 7) and Logan ( 1).
Anne- Marie remembers playing with Keith on the beach in Rosses point when Martin used to bring Keith out during the Summer. Back then she admits no one thought they would end up together.
“When it happened it was great for everyone involved because we all knew each other,” she says.
When asked what’s special about her husband, she does not hesitate: “His personality. He could talk for Ireland and he is so loveable with the kids, it’s great.”