A Recipe for Love - Briege and Peter's Lough Eske Wedding

I wonder what the perfect reciped for a happy marriage is? Something like take one man and one woman, add 4 cups of Love, 2 cups of Loyalty, 3 cups of Kindness, 1 cup of Friendship, 5 spoonfuls of Hope and 1 barrel of Laughter and you're well on your way to a happy marriage.  Today's lovely couple, Briege and […]

I wonder what the perfect reciped for a happy marriage is? Something like take one man and one woman, add 4 cups of Love, 2 cups of Loyalty, 3 cups of Kindness, 1 cup of Friendship, 5 spoonfuls of Hope and 1 barrel of Laughter and you're well on your way to a happy marriage.  Today's lovely couple, Briege and Peter may have their own recipe, especially as Peter is a chef, and their romance has always been concentrated in the kitchen. As a result their Lough Eske wedding was a happy mix of love and laughter with some very yummy food and plenty of help from friends and family, all captured by Sarah Fyffe...

So how did the lovebirds meet? "We met at a mutual friend’s 30th birthday, Peter was best friends with her boyfriend, we sat across from each other and that’s where it all began!"

And what about the proposal? "We had just returned from a fabulous week in Croatia, and after breakfast, the weekend before our anniversary, Peter got down on one knee in his RED KITCHEN and proposed! Thankfully breakfast stayed down, and he got up and I said Yes! He had provisionally checked the venue and we had an appointment arranged for the following weekend. To celebrate, Peter took me that night to Castlemurray House — amazing French restaurant in Dunkineely, Co Donegal!"

Outside the picturesque St. Lawrence's Church, Briege enlisted the help of  sister in law & florist, Roisin Gallagher McAtee, who created a vintage feel by dressing Peter’s mother old bicycle with flowers, using an old suitcase her mother had given her & Campbell’s Perfect Tea tins.

When organising the wedding, a theme of lovebirdes started to emerge "It wasn't intentional, but we ended up with Love birds as the theme - after searching online I found a cool vector file with 2 love birds on a branch. I bought the file for $10 and this set the scene for the stationary, designing the invites first, the mass booklets and the jam jar labels. I found two wooden bird cake toppers on etsy.com, which I had shipped from the US, and loved them!"

What was the most special part of the day? "The ceremony from start to finish! My brother John gave me away, when we stood at the top of the church before walking down the aisle, John whispered to me, look at all these people, here to see you and Peter get married, isn’t it fantastic! Walking down that aisle and seeing Peter there waiting for me, I couldn’t wait to marry him! I knew then that this was going to be the most perfect day, better than I could ever have imagined. Our priest Father Jim Moore was wonderful, he had left little comments in our mass booklets and kept us relaxed throughout the service, our music in the church by Stephen and James was beautiful and complemented everything! Wish I could do it all again!"

The choice of ceremony and celebration venues was a lesson in the art of compromise, allowing each of these homebirds their own connection to their home "I am from Tyrone and Peter is from Donegal. Having the ceremony in my home town was very important to me and both of us love Donegal so that was always going to be the location for the reception. We were conscious of the distances our guests had to travel from Dublin and Donegal, so decided upon a 1pm ceremony in Tyrone to allow time for those travelling and provide our guests with drinks and refreshments in the family pub, McAtee’s in Fintona. For the venue we wanted somewhere classic that tied in with the vintage feel. Lough Eske Castle has a breathtaking entrance, amazing location overlooking Lough Eske and they provide a very high standard of service. They met all our expectations, we couldn’t have asked for a nicer venue and our guest raved about everything from start to finish, which made it all the more memorable!"

Making the big entrance as husband and wife is often overlooked, but not in Briege and Peter's case they asked their DJ to mix “You’ll always find him in the kitchen at parties!" and waiting for the guests on the tables was a special wedding favour. "My mother very kindly made her famous Marmalade Jam and my sister in laws and Erin helped label and lid the jams. Using the love birds, we included “Spread the Love” on the label along with our names and wedding date. This evoked such a lovely reaction from our guests and I am still receiving early morning texts stating they are spreading the love on their toast with a smile on their face of the day!"

What advice would you give to brides and grooms planning their day? "Pick a good photographer who understands you & your groom, use onefabday.com as your ultimate reference guide to give you ideas of how you want your day to plan out, and lastly, nothing goes exactly to plan, but we loved every minute of it and so did our guests!"

Huge thanks to Briege and Peter for sharing their day with us, hope married life is treating you both really well!

And to Sarah Fyffe a big thank you for sharing these beautiful images with us. If you want to see more of Briege and Peter's day you can check out their video: http://vimeo.com/41909928


See more in:

RECOMMENDS

You might also like...

RECOMMENDS
Sign up to our newsletter
I do
chevron-downcross-circle