A little later than usual, but well worth the wait is today's real wedding - a real gem combining a great couple with groovy style, a fab location and lots of little details that make a celebration that bit more personal. Jane really got her glue gun and fancy paper out and got all crafty to put her own stamp on the day, and photographer Elisha Clarke did a great job of catching both the fun and frolics.

In addition to a beautifully inspiring wedding, Jane and Brian have one of the most romantic proposal stories, with Brian certainly fulfilling his role of doting leading man in this beautiful lady's life...

So let's hear it - how did you get together? "I’m afraid it’s not very romantic! We met in a pub in Dundrum, where we were both living with friends at the time. Myself and my friend were out in the beer garden area and got talking to a group of guys — one of them was Brian. The minute we start talking we were laughing non-stop. We have the exact same sense of humour and after a few more dates we were pretty much inseparable. And the rest as they say, is history..." well until you hear the engagement story - better get a cuppa for this one, it's quite the sceal

"This is a bit of a mad story and it’s Brians fault... It happened in December, we were living with my Mam at the time while we were renovating a house we had just bought. We spent the day doing some Christmas shopping and that evening returned home to wrap the presents when the phone rang. Mam answered and sounded a bit concerned, a neighbour of the house we were renovating had rang to say he could hear water rushing from our house. We presumed a pipe had burst and so Brian drove down to investigate. Twenty minutes later I got a phone call from Brian saying he had a small fall down the stairs and sprained his ankle so could I come down to get him. I jumped into the car with Mam straight away to go to his rescue... 

When we got there Mam said she wouldn’t go in with me … I thought “that’s a bit strange” as she would usually be a lot more concerned. I ran to the front door which opened straight away by SANTA! That’s right, Brian was dressed as Santa Claus — white beard and all! The stairwell to the old house was now lit up with tea light candles and the banister was covered in fairy lights. I thought it was a great Christmas surprise (still didn’t have a clue!), and Santa brought me through to the living room which had been transformed into a Christmas wonderland. Santa gave me the presents to open and then said there was one more present in the kitchen and that I was to wait where I was until he called me to come in.

I did start to get a bit nervous at this point. A few moments later he called me in and when I opened the door, the room was covered in tea lights, candles, fairy lights and on the floor there were candles in the shape of a giant love heart. Brian was standing on the opposite side of the room dressed very dapperly in a suit and tie (thankfully he took off the Santa costume!). As the Drummer Boy song played in the background, Brian stepped into the love heart of candles and got down on one knee and asked me to marry him! I was in complete shock but of course said yes! 

Remembering Mam was out in the car (and me thinking she didn’t have a clue what was going on) we waved at her to come in and quickly opened a bottle of champagne in celebration. Turns out Brian had Mam in on the whole thing — she explained how herself and Brian had plotted earlier that day that he would ring her and she would pretend that she was talking to a neighbour about the “water problem” …but in fact there was no-one at the other end of the line. All the while I’m sitting there beside them wrapping presents. They were good actors. Very sneaky indeed!

It doesn’t end there. I realised I had left my phone at home with all my numbers so couldn’t ring the rest of my family and friends to tell them the good news. Brian said not to worry and that we could ring them when we got home later but first we had to go to the pub where Brian's sisters were waiting for us as they had travelled down from Donegal to help him decorate the house. So off to the pub in a taxi we headed. When we got there, to Brian's surprise his mother was standing outside looking at us and she start singing congratulations on the street! She had travelled down from Donegal to surprise us and Brian had no clue. After a lot of emotional and happy hugs, we walked into the pub only to be greeted by loud eruptions of cheering from our friends. On top of the amazing proposal, Brian had organised for a surprise engagement party for me, not realising his own Mam would come down from Donegal for it so he was chuffed too. The pub was decorated in congratulations banners and balloons, and we spent the night celebrating until the wee hours with all our nearest and dearest. Really now... didn’t the boy do good?!! Well, I have to say I do agree. I'm exhausted just reading about it, can't imagine how he felt! I think the expression is: "he's a keeper". Well done Brian!

"We both knew we wanted to get married in Donegal, where Brian is from, as it is such a beautiful county. Brian’s sister told us about the Church of the Sacred Heart in Dunlewey and the minute we saw it we knew this was where we wanted to get married! The Church sits at the foot of Mount Errigal and the surrounding scenery is absolutely breathtaking. The Church is very old and has a round tower which I think makes it look it’s from a fairytale!"

"I didn’t set out to have a theme but I suppose our look was vintage/old world charme - it just kind of happened as we went along. My dress, head piece and jewellery were all vintage inspired and my bridesmaids wore lovely dusty pink 1950’s style dresses. I wanted the flowers to look like they were wild and handpicked, and also to have a soft vintage feel. My bouquet was full of soft ivory and dusty pink flowers with some wild daisies to tie in with the rugged landscape of the area. The wedding party had wild daisies for their buttonholes, and our flowergirls had circular headpieces in gypsophila and daisies." One touch I particularly love is how Jane pinned a locket to her bouquet, with a picture of her mum and dad in it.

These are really how you do wildflower bouquets - the mix of textures and colours - so vibrant and natural, as if picked that morning...

An Chuírt Hotel was the obvious choice as its only a 10 minute drive away from the Church but that’s not the reason we choose this venue to have our reception. Not only is the hotel surrounded by beautiful scenery but the hotel itself is really lovely inside. It has buckets of old world charm. The reception room was light and bright with wonderful views from windows all around the room. The food and the service is second to none. The staff were extremely friendly and helpful — they even played nice music during dinner which we had not asked for or thought of. The manager Lewis really went above and beyond for us on the day and was a total pleasure to deal throughout the whole process.

"With help of my Mam, I made the Mr. and Mrs. block letters which we pasted music sheet paper to. We put the letters on a table at the reception with pictures of both our parents on their wedding day. I also made the block letters that say YUM on the cake table and the ‘just married’ sign which was hanging from the cake table and the one which was on the back of the Morris Minor. I got both templates for these on the Martha Stewart website.

Don’t be afraid of doing DIY. If you have any creative ability, use it! Not only will you probably save on your budget but it is also great fun and you get to add your own special personal touch to the day."

I’m very lucky to have talented friends and my friend Dorinda who is very creative kindly agreed to hand-make the cake toppers for our wedding cake. We agreed that raggy dolls would be perfect with the vintage style. She hand-stitched each doll and even made a little fiddle out of felt and attached it to Brian's raggy doll as if he were playing it. Everyone commented on how unusual and lovely they were — I think she did an amazing job! Brian's cousin Rosa made our wedding cake with the help of her mother Margaret. It had three different flavoured layers — the bottom layer was chocolate biscuit, the middle was madeira and the top was coffee cake. They even decorated it with pretty ribbons for us.

Now you're probably wondering what's going on in the following pictures, but don't worry the groom wasn't completely baloobas by dinner time... "I have lots of favourite moments, but one that sticks out is when Brian did a Sean-nós dance during his speech. He took to the middle of the floor with a kazoo and then leapt around the room like a crazy man! It was a very funny."

"We love all things dress up, so after dinner our photographer Elisha Clarke set up her own DIY photobooth full of fun props for us to play with including some Christmas head pieces which reminded us of our Christmas engagement. My bridesmaids Helen and Lisa made the moustaches, lips and uni-brows to add to Elisha’s mix of photobooth props. She took pictures of everyone with wigs and moustaches which are a great addition to our photographs."

And of course, we have to ask some advice of this cool couple, so what words of wisdom do they have for us soon-to-be-weds? "I would say to everyone who is feeling a bit nervous to just relax and enjoy the day. I do think that if the bride and groom are very stressed and uptight, it can have a ripple effect with the rest of your guests so my main and last bit of advice would be to have fun because it is great fun!! All the planning and organising can be very stressful but you have to remember what it is all about— marrying the person you love and having an amazing day with everyone you love and who loves you!

Plan your day to suit you and your partner. We really wanted our day to be very personal and so we tried to incorporate themes reflecting what we love to do as a couple, like going to festivals, listening to music, vintage, old worldie charm, and not forgetting the dressing up fun!"

As always we are very grateful to Jane and Brian for sharing their wedding with us all, it's an honour to be able to see behind the scenes of such a lovely occasion. Hope you are both enjoying married life, and that Brian lives up to his own standards for the first anniversary!

And huge thanks to Elisha Clarke for sharing her work on Jane and Brian's day with us - a photographer who understands how to capture all the little details as well as the big moments is essential - so make sure to hop over to elishaclarke.com to see more...

All the Wedding Details

• Ceremony: Church of the Sacred Heart, Dunlewey, Co. Donegal

• Photography: Elisha Clarke
• Reception : An Chuírt Hotel

• Wedding Dress: Deco Brides 

• Bridesmaids dresses: Traffic People Boutique

• Shoes: Faith, Floral accessory: Hickeys

• Flowers: Tiger Lilly

• Groom’s suit: Arnotts
• Groomsmen’s suits: Aston Suit Hire
• Earrings and bracelet:Rhinestones 

• Head piece: Hickeys 

• Cars: Morris Minors from Donegal Vintage Club

• Make Up & Hair: Lisa Harkin, Harkin Hairdressers

• Wedding Band: Street Life, Ardara, Co. Donegal

• Ceremony/Reception Music: Sara and Jennifer Laughlin, Chris Rafter