When a couple smiles all day long on their wedding day, the guests smile too. And in today's real wedding, Caroline and Vincent beamed from start to finish. The creative couple, who met on a night out in Dublin, crafted their Belleek Castle wedding to reflect their personalities - from the dress, designed by Caroline's mam, to the invitations, designed by Vincent, to the DIY décor painstakingly put together by the couple and their pals (not to mention the canine ring bearer!), this wedding - captured beautifully by Studio Brown - has lots of ideas for putting your stamp on your day.

Caroline & Vincent met at a gig in Dublin, the bride tells us. “I was living in London at the time and was home for Christmas. I was out with my friend (later my maid of honour!) but we ended up getting separated at the end of the night. Vin and I ended up chatting in the cloakroom queue; I tried to ignore him but he was so hilarious, I couldn’t! He put me in a taxi and since I was going back to London the next day, we exchanged numbers. A few weeks later he came to visit and I suppose that was it!”

The couple wanted their wedding to reflect their personalities. “I work with animals," Caroline says, "and Vin is a graphic designer so it was really important that our wedding represented both of us. We did lots of the crafting and decorating ourselves, and we were so lucky that the venue let our dog Bo join in on the ceremony too!”

The wedding stationery had a particularly personal touch! "We had little caricatures of ourselves, our dog and our two cats," Caroline explains. "As an RSVP, I had the idea of getting people to reply to us using a photo. We designed two cards, one with our dog saying they can come to the wedding, the other with our cats saying they couldn’t attend. We got each guest to send us a selfie with their chosen card. We then printed out each selfie to display at the wedding in our selfie section! It was so funny!”

Caroline loved immersing herself in all things weddings. “I’m not going to lie, I developed a very serious Pinterest addiction," she admits. "Everything I saw, I wanted to make! This lead to us, along with about six of our friends, spending about 72 hours non-stop creating a Vin and Caroline-themed selfie booth, hand-painted and hand-built three days before the wedding!”

And the DIY projects didn’t end there! “We also made some cool signs which we placed all around the venue, all hand-made and Pinterest-inspired! There was a lot of blackboard paint, chalk markers and fairy lights. We also wanted a bit of an autumnal theme around the castle, so placed adorable micro-pumpkins everywhere!”

Caroline walked down the aisle to an acoustic version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow performed by singer and songwriter Ruth-Anne Cunningham.

Caroline & Vincent’s dog made a cameo on the day too! “It was really meaningful to us that the venue allowed our dog Bo to participate in the wedding as our furry ring bearer. She is such a big part of our life and it was lovely to have her involved. She was so cute in the photos! It made our day even more memorable and unique.”

The bride and groom knew what they wanted for their ceremony from the start. “The most important thing to us about our wedding was that it was chilled out and wholesome. We never wanted a church wedding so enlisted Marry Me Ireland to provide a celebrant called Eveanna. She was amazing and the ceremony was so lovely and personal.”

Caroline opted for stylish high street dresses for her bridesmaids. “The bridesmaid dresses were from & Other Stories. They were a beautiful soft silk and we adjusted them slightly.”

Caroline and Vincent were eager to give their guests a lovely day out. “We wanted the day to look effortless and cool and we just wanted everyone to have a good time. It was important that our wedding wasn’t too glam, as this isn't us. Our dog Bo was our ring bearer, everything was homemade and our photoshoot was in a forest!”

Caroline’s top tip for other couples? Start early! “Book the band, photographer and venue as soon as you can and then sit back and enjoy all the fun stuff, like dress shopping!”

There’s special sentiment behind Caroline’s bridal look, she tells us. “My mum designed and made my wedding dress with handmade French Chantilly Lace from Roisin Cross Silks in Dun Laoghaire. My flowers are Linda’s Flowers in Swords. My godmother owns the shop, which meant I could be as imaginative as I wanted. I had a bizarre requirement for orange and pink and she made it work! I wore my late grandmother’s wedding ring on my right hand, which was so nice to have.”

I just love the back of Caroline's dress - what a talented Mam she has!

After attending a wedding in Belleek Castle a few years beforehand, the couple always hoped that it would be their venue too! “We knew it was the one," Caroline says. "It was so stunning from the outside and then the inside was so unique, and it was really the banquet hall that sold the place. The initial drive up to the castle is breathtaking too!”

The reception was where the couple really injected personality into their day, “We had our Spit Roast Pig Banquet and our band and DJ in the banquet hall in the basement, a big space with stone floors and walls and a huge open fire at one end. It was warm and cosy and had more than enough space for all the dance moves that went on that night!”

The couple loved putting their guests to work, tasking the bridesmaid's boyfriends with decorating their cheese tower wedding cake!  “It kept them amused while us girls got ready and they did an awesome job," Caroline says. "It was so nice to have our friends involved in the organising. It brought together boyfriends, girlfriends, wedding party and non-wedding party in the run up to the big they, so that nobody felt left out.”

The couple also got philanthropic with their wedding favours. “We donated to a local animal charity instead of having favours," Caroline explains. "My bridesmaids and I handmade the place names for all the guests. We spray painted miniature dog figures gold, and placed them on card stamped with each guest’s name. Everyone took theirs home!”

This wedding clearly required a lot of work to pull together, so we're not surprised that the couple haven't gotten around to booking their honeymoon. “We went on a small honeymoon to Portugal for a week straight after the wedding, with the intention of going somewhere bigger in 2017. We haven’t decided where yet!”

Thanks so much to Caroline & Vincent for sharing their wedding day with us, and let's hear it for Studio Brown, who captured it so beautifully!