Getting Married in Ireland

Congratulations! .......

This is one of the most magical times in your entire life - somebody (very special) has proposed to you and you’ve said YES! There are few things in the world as special as this time is and there is a happy and promising future in store for both of you. But, before that, you have a wedding to plan - an Irish Wedding.

Wedding Cars in the west of Ireland

U2R1 Wedding Cars Claremorris County Mayo Ireland	Knock Wedding Cars Knock County Mayo Ireland
Leonard's Carriage Company Cong County Mayo Ireland

The Date

After the formalities of all the ‘Congratulations’ are out of the way, the very first question you can expect to be asked is ... “When is the Big Day?” Everything surrounds that one important day and settling on a date well in advance will make the planning fall into place.

The most important consideration when setting a date is the suitability and convenience of that date for the two of you. It’s not important that it takes place during Auntie Molly’s annual holidays or just after Uncle Jim recovers from his knee operation (so he can hit the dance floor!), it should be a mutually agreed date, suiting the two most important people on that day ... you and your fiancee. Is there a time of year that you always wanted to get married? Maybe you want to be a classic June bride or perhaps you would love a white winter wedding with a little trace of snow if possible.

You may also end up choosing your wedding date based on the availability of the church/registry office where you want to get married as well as on the availability of a particular hotel or other venue for the reception.

Your Budget

For most people their wedding is the biggest party they are likely to plan in their entire lives. Budgeting for such an occasion is a tricky business and you need to be realistic about it. From the total cost of the wedding, approx 40 - 50% of the money is spent on the reception, including food, cake and decorations. The remainder goes on wedding attire, stationary, photography/videography, flowers, music and transportation.

Invitations

If you are very creative or you have lots of time, you may want to consider making the invitations yourself. This allows you to be as original or imaginative as you wish to be and there are many excellent office supply stores who sell suitable paper, card and vellum paper. All you need to do is design your own template, get the relevant materials and away you go!

The same thing applies to order of service booklets, menus, evening invites, thank you cards etc. Just make sure you have plenty time to experiment before you have to set to work and produce the finished product. You also need to consider what size you want the invitations to turn out as it is very important that you have sourced suitable envelopes before you do the final draft. Another alternative might be to design your own cards, save it in a computer file and take it to an office supply store to have them printed professionally there.

If the idea of doing your own invites sounds too much like hard work, there are countless good stationary or wedding stores where you can pick out your invitations and order the required amount. There are invitations to suit all budgets out there, so try to shop around and find one that you both like and that suits your budget. Do remember to order a few extra invites in case you spoil any or in case of last minute decisions on who to invite!

Sending out your invitations 6 - 8 weeks before the wedding is an approximate guideline. Make the guest RSVP date approx 3 weeks before the wedding and even then it is inevitable that you will have to actually contact a number of them in order to find out if they intend to be there or not.

Buying the rings

This is one of the really exciting things about planning your wedding and one that the two of you will be doing together. You may want to go back to where the engagement ring was bought and have that jeweller design and make you rings to complement the engagement ring or you might want to visit a greater number of jewellers and see what takes your eye in some of them.

Order the rings in good time and go back for fittings and resizing if necessary. It is probably a good idea to leave them in the safe keeping of the jewellers until as near to the wedding day as is practical, that way you know where they are and jewellers can make minor adjustments in them right up to the last week.

The Dress

Another of the very enjoyable tasks to be done for the wedding. There is a wide range of styles, materials and prices where wedding dresses are concerned. Probably the first thing you should do is visit a number of bridal shops and try on different styles to get a good feeling of what kind of dress suits you. Try on many different types of dresses, rather than many of the same style - for example, rather than trying on three strapless, A-line dresses, try on one spaghetti strap A-line silk dress, then one strapless ball-gown style and then one sleeveless layered chiffon dress and so on. The more styles of dress you fit on, the easier it will be to identify which style is most flattering to your shape and easier to narrow down the ones that you really like ... and take it from there! You'l find more ideas in the Amazing Wedding Planner and Wedding Planning Guide Secrets!!

You may decide to buy in a specialised bridal shop or in a department store where they do evening wear. On the other hand you may find something you like online - don’t worry about alterations, because it is fairly inevitable that whatever you buy and wherever you buy it, alterations will probably be necessary anyway. Another option is to find a good and reputable dressmaker, talk to her about what she can design and make for you, enquire about cost and whether she can supply the materials or she wants you to shop for them yourself and if you like what you are hearing you may end up with your own unique dress - probably for a lot less money too.

If you don’t want to invest in a dress that might just hang in your wardrobe after the event, you could be lucky enough to find a good dress hire shop or company, from which you could rent your own dress as well as bridesmaids, child attendants etc. If this is the way you want to go make sure you go there well in advance, get a look at everything they have and see if they are prepared to do all the alterations to have the dress looking like it was tailored for you alone. It is usually a very cost effective way or outfitting your bridal party and you don’t have the worry of what to do with the whole lot afterwards.

Shop wisely for the accessories because these items - shoes, headpiece/tiara, underwear, jewellery - can work out very expensively if you don’t shop around. Bridal shops are generally more expensive for those commodities than department stores. Indeed you might want to implement the ‘something old, something new, something borrowed’ rule here, particularly in relation to headpiece or a piece of jewellery.

Lastly, when you are shopping/looking for the dress, while it is advisable to have somebody with you on whose opinion you can rely, it is better not to have TOO many opinions either!

The Speeches

This need not be the most dreaded part of the wedding ceremony. You'll find lots of help on the Internet with bride and groom speeches, bestman speeches, father of the bride speeches, mother of the bride speeches and even maid of honour speeches. Here are a few sites to help with your research:

We have given many speeches and have researched as much speech-making information as we could find, attended seminars of many well known professional speakers, surveyed customers to find out their exact wants and needs, all with the aim of providing you with fresh and up to date material that will help you write and deliver the killer speech.

Getting married in County Mayo?

Visit the Mayo Ireland website for information on Accommodation, Chauffeur/Wedding Car services, Ballintubber Abbey, Knock Shrine, music and photography.

Accommodation

if you are looking for accommodation in Ireland check out Mayo Hotels, Connemara Accommodation, County Mayo Accommodation and Ireland Accommodation.