'All Craic and No Stress': Gill & Aidan

There's DIY detail and colourful blooms galore in this Inish Beg Estate wedding. And we can't forget the wedding-themed foosball table!

It's not often that you see a sun-drenched wedding in Ireland, but the couple in today's real wedding clearly had an army of friends and family members leaving out the Child of Prague for their big day at Inish Beg Estate! Gill & Aidan may have taken a gamble with the weather, but their three-day bash was always going to be special, thanks to the DIY touches the couple dreamed up (two words: bridal foosball) and the show-stopping florals, all of which were captured in glorious detail by Lucy Nuzum Photography.

Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography

Gill and Aidan met as kids and became quick pals before getting together in their late teens. "We were long-distance for spells," Gill explains. "Aidan worked in Cardiff for a few years while I was doing my degree in UCC and then I moved to New York for part of my PhD, but we've been living together happily for a few years now. We’ve had the same group of friends all this time, so we knew our wedding would be one huge party!"

Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography
Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography

Aidan proposed via a frankly adorable treasure hunt. "I arrived back from New York a few days before Christmas, exhausted from the overnight flight, to find a treasure hunt that led me all around our house," Gill remembers. "I had to solve riddles to work out which room to go to next and to find the presents hidden in each room. I absolutely love brain teasers and silly games like that, so I was thinking it was all just an extremely elaborate welcome home."

Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography
Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography

That is, until she got to the last room and found a ginormous gift-wrapped box under the Christmas tree. "Aidan was inside the box down on one knee! It was so unexpected and I was an emotional mess from the shock and delight and jet lag all at once!"

Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography
Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography
Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography

Gill sourced these knot bracelets from Etsy and gave them to her bridesmaids as gifts - aren't they gorgeous? The card read, "Thank you for helping us tie the knot!"

Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography
Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography

OK, I need this handkerchief in my life. If not for the next wedding I attend, then for watching episodes of Queer Eye.

Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography

Now that's the reaction you want when you walk into a room in your wedding dress! Am I right!?

Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography
Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography
Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography

Have you ever seen a cooler bridal party? And those flowers are just divine! Gill says she was dreaming of oversized florals from the beginning. "I really wanted dramatic flowers and spent ages scouring One Fab Day for the right florist!" Awh shucks! Happy to be of service, Gill!

Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography
Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography

She found her dream florist in Lydia from Vintage Cut Flowers. "She is incredibly skilled and grows her flowers at her home in West Cork. I told her I had no fear of the flowers being too big or wild and I was thrilled with them when they arrived on the morning of the wedding. She also somehow made the flowers really lightweight despite the size. I had been worried they’d be hard to lug around but they were amazingly light and I didn’t want to put them down!"

Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography
Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography

This is where Gill and Aidan's day starts to resemble a wedding in the South of France! The couple say that this lovely outdoor ceremony space sold them on the venue. "I had never imagined getting married outside," Gill says, "It seems borderline masochistic to attempt an outdoor wedding in Ireland! But it was just so beautiful there that we decided to throw caution to the wind and bank on dry weather. We booked the June weekend just before the Leaving Cert so we figured we had decent chances!"

Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography
Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography

As Gill and Aidan got legally married in the Cork registry office a few days before their wedding, they were able to have a childhood pal officiate the wedding ceremony. "Eoin surprised us by speaking about how long we’d all been in each other’s lives – from underage drinking in bushes together to going to each other’s debs to him being our celebrant! It was really touching and another way that the day was so personal."

Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography
Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography
Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography

The couple wrote the ceremony themselves and made sure to include readings that represented their personalities. "One of our readings was an adaptation of Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot. Our friend Cian spoke about how we live on an insignificant speck in a tiny corner of the galaxy but that it’s all the more reason to celebrate the fortuitous coincidence that two people can meet at the same brief point in time and make each other so happy." Alright, where's that handkerchief?

Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography
Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography
Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography

Gill says that getting friends and family involved in the organisation of the wedding made it extra special. "I think almost everyone present contributed in some small way to putting the wedding together, whether it was playing music for the céili at the trad session the day after, or lugging tree logs around the forest to make some seats for the ceremony!"

Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography
Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography

Gill's biggest piece of advice to engaged couples is to find suppliers that you really click with. "We couldn’t have been any happier with our photographer Lucy and her assistant Anouska. They were so lovely and made everyone feel at ease and the photos were just gorgeous. I don’t know how they took so many incredible photos without ever getting in the way or bossing us around, but they were more like two lovely guests that everyone made friends with!"

Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography
Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography

It might sound obvious, but Gill says that the couple's one priority for their wedding was having fun! "We joked that our theme was ‘a huge house party’ but that’s actually what we ended up aiming for, just pure fun and games and nothing too serious. We wanted to throw the kind of wedding that we really wanted to attend ourselves and so every decision was really based in that."

Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography

"It was very laid-back, there was no stress or formality," Gill says, adding that the wedding stretched on for three days! "Our friends and family arrived Friday afternoon and helped us set up the reception chairs and tables and then we all went for dinner in Baltimore. Then we had a BBQ and trad session on the Sunday and we all limped home on the Bank Holiday Monday. Everything was in one place so people really relaxed, and got to know each other, which was lovely."

Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography
Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography
Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography

The crafty pair made their own lawn games for guests to play during the drinks reception and our absolute favourite is their bride and groom foosball table! "Aidan painted on the tuxes and I glued little veils onto the brides. We had such fun in the weeks before the wedding spray painting and gluing in our back garden and we still have the games now, they’re great for taking out during a barbeque!"

Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography
Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography

They also designed their own cocktails! "We had Baltimore Blush for the pink vodka cocktail and Something Blue for the bright blue gin cocktail. We spent hours at home one night trying out different ingredients (and getting progressively hammered in the process!). Like making the lawn games, the cocktail making was so much fun and was another part of the wedding planning that was all craic and no stress!"

Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography
Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography

Banking on sunny weather paid off for the couple, but Gill admits that she got nervous in the run-up to the wedding. "I had about seven weather apps on the go!" she says. "But we got some great advice from the venue which eased the worry a bit. We bought five large pop-up marquees a week before the wedding and left them in the boxes and kept the receipt so we could return them if it didn’t rain, likewise with loads of umbrellas!"

Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography
Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography
Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography

Can you believe that Gill made the wedding cake herself, along with many of the treats on the dessert table? She's one seriously talented bride!

Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography
Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography
Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography

After the wedding, Gill and Aidan spent a weekend in Kerry ("It rained the whole time and we did nothing but relax and recharge!") before shooting off to Bali the following week for their honeymoon. "I’m really glad we didn’t go on the honeymoon right away, because we were exhausted!" Gill says.

Inish Beg Estate wedding by Lucy Nuzum Photography

There's always time for a slow dance! At this point, we have to say a massive thanks to Gill and Aidan for letting us peek inside their big day, and to Lucy Nuzum for sharing her beautiful photographs with us!

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