Ever since we clapped eyes on this this real wedding we've been beyond excited to share it with you! Caroline and Max are one cool couple, with incredible style and great vision - if you haven't already watched their wedding film, it is a must-see! The Irish bride and English groom met in London and live in Amsterdam, but it was Ballintubbert House that played the perfect backdrop to their ultra laid-back weekender wedding. Despite the relaxed garden party vibes on the day, the celebrations were meticulously planned, with decor sourced from around Europe, outfits carefully styled, even the playlist was painstakingly compiled. The result - as you'll see from the gorgeous photos by This Modern Love - was a fun, creative, highly-personalised celebration, with some serious attention to detail and lots of clever ideas you're going to want to pinch!

Dublin native, Caroline met Londoner Max through work, “We were good friends for a few years before Max decided to move to Amsterdam and I decided I wasn’t very happy about that!” recalls the bride, “So after two years of painful Easyjet flights between London and Amsterdam, I moved to The Netherlands and that’s where we’ve been for four years now.”

First up, how gorgeous is this bouquet - the colour combinations are so unusual and I love all that texture!

Max tells us the background to his particularly sweet proposal in Ireland, "As we live in one of the flattest countries on earth whenever we are back in Dublin we love to walk up the mountains to blow off the cobwebs. Two years ago, Caroline’s brother Adam, who is a very talented photographer, gave us a print of a beautiful shot he took up the Dublin mountains.”

We love a groom who's a bit of a clothes horse and Max smashed it with his skull silk jacquard - that gorgeous green tie goes a step further in bringing even more personalisation to his look.

One weekend, when the couple were back to visit family, Max suggested they go up to the spot that Adam took the photo from, “…So when we looked it in our house in Amsterdam we’d always be able to feel what it is like there,” explains Caroline, “When we found the exact viewpoint of the photo Max proposed. So without knowing it, we had actually been looking at a beautiful shot of the exact view we had the moment we got engaged in our house all along.” Such a clever plan!

This ceremony backdrop is breathtakingly beautiful, don't you think?

‘Fun and friendly’ was the ultimate aim for Caroline and Max when it came to planning out their wedding weekend, “A stuffy, formal wedding would not have suited us. For the wedding day itself, we wanted the style to be modern, romantic and chic. We mixed a lot of cool, summer colours (purple, pink, grey, green, yellow) as we wanted it to feel light and celebratory but still sophisticated.”

What a view for these lucky guests! P.S. Doesn't the timeline for this day sound pretty magic?

The couple poured their own style into all the details, “For the vibe of the day we wanted to make sure everything felt very personal to us, so we styled, curated and edited everything to our taste. We didn’t decorate with anything we wouldn’t have put in our house (which is now brimming with left over vases and candle holders!)”.

This pair look so loved up!

To ensure an effortless feel, the couple but lots of effort into the structure and atmosphere of the day, “Food was family-style, readings were modern and personal, and music played a role throughout the wedding (with three bands playing at different times as day turned into night and night then turned back into day). Everything was designed to bring people together and ensure that they had as good a time as we did!”

Even the drinks menu got the personal touch from the pair, "To represent the three cities that mean the most to us, the drinks during the reception were named The Liffey (Champagne and Irish strawberries), The Thames (Pimms) and The Amstel (Genever & Tonic) and our wedding cake had tiers representing each of the three cities too.” These two!

The couple curated the sounds on the day as well as the visuals, “We chose music very specific to our tastes – in particular The Hitmen Trio allowed us to select the last few songs to be played before the ceremony started which really set the tone for the whole day.”

(That's us at most weddings to be honest!)

And for any guests visiting Ireland, they were treated to some of the nation's finest culinary delights, “As well as Ballintubbert providing amazing amenities bags to all the guest staying in tents, we also gave them welcome packs to introduce them to some of the best Ireland has to offer (including our hangover treats of choice - Rock Shandy and Hunky Dory crisps).”

As the couple are from different cities, and now live in Amsterdam, they were eager to get quality time in with their guests, “We didn’t have a big wedding because we wanted to make sure that we weren’t rushing around saying hi to people we don’t see from one end of the year to the next but could actually spend the time with our friends and family we don’t get to see that much anyway living abroad.”

After the guest list was curated and the venue sorted, it was on to the fun stuff, “Good music, good food, relaxed vibes. We would be lying if we didn’t say that the dress and suit were not incredibly important too, once we got them everything started to fall into place.”

Caroline's bridesmaids wore these gorgeous mix and match jewel toned dresses, I love the back detail that ties them all together.

Videography and photography were close to the top of Caroline & Max’s list of priorities, “It was important that the day was captured as we envisioned it too, that’s why This Modern Love and Forever Social were our first choices – their style of photography and videography meant that we weren’t left with stuffy formal portraits but pictures and videos that captured perfectly the feeling of the day.”

Now, let's take a moment to gush over Caroline's stunning wedding day ensemble - so much sparkle! The bride wore a highly-embellished vintage style gown, adding some serious glamour to the festivities, while her swept-back upstyle added some easy-going elegance to the look.

The couple invested a lot of time researching venues remotely, “As we don’t live in Ireland we had had to do a lot of online research to make sure we were using our time wisely when we had just one day to visit a few. The main criteria we had was that the venue allowed us creative freedom to plan and style the day how we wanted, that people travelling could stay on the grounds if they wanted and that the staff were friendly and helpful.”

Thankfully Ballintubbert House ticked all those boxes and then some, “What blew us away when we got there was how beautiful every nook and cranny of the house and gardens were. The interior styling of the house was gorgeous and there were lots of places to discover as you walked around the grounds. We felt quite at home there immediately and felt all our guests would too.”

As you can see from the pictures, the hard work and attention to detail and work that went into this wedding was next level, “The day felt very personal to us because we had spent so long sourcing everything that we felt like we were welcoming people into a little world we had created. We drove the aisle runner back from Germany, we brought vases from Amsterdam, confetti from the UK…”

The couple gave their tablescapes a contemporary update with minimal candleholders and a non-traditional palette.

Caroline and Max are wedding pros at this stage and have some wise words to pass on, “There is not just one right wedding for each couple. We both always thought we would have a contemporary city wedding as that is more our style but it just didn’t work out that way. We realised that the experience of the wedding outweighed any other element so thinking of what you want to get out of the wedding (and not necessarily the style) should be the first port of call.”

The couple say that when it comes to weddings, there’s no such thing as a ‘must do’, “You don’t have to have favours or cut the cake (we had actually cut our cake at a BBQ the next day), you don’t have to have a best man speech or ceremony booklets. Prioritise what you want and then consider cutting out the rest. You will save a lot of time and stress - and don’t worry that someone will be annoyed by the decisions you make, they will get over it!” Hear, hear!

And a final nugget of advice? Know the moment to drop the to-do list, and start having fun, “And there’s always going to be things you don’t get round to on your list – and that’s totally fine! Come the day itself you won’t even remember what they were, as you’ll instinctively prioritise the things that are most important to you anyway.”

Amsterdam, Dublin, London, we are obsessed with this three-tiered, three city creation by Cupcakes and Counting.

Although not pre-planned, the timing of the day allowed for a little post-ceremony viewing, “England were playing in the quarter-final of the World Cup that day, and as luck would have it the ceremony ended in time for people to catch the last 15 mins of the match and see the winning goal. Something all of our English guests certainly appreciated!”

The couple got the festivities off to a flying start the night before the wedding, “We had casual dinner and drinks to welcome everyone. This turned out to be a fantastic opportunity for everyone to meet and get to know each other. It meant that on the day of the wedding itself, everyone was already friendly and the day kicked off on a great foot.”

This shot makes our heart skip a beat - Caroline's dress is beyond beautiful!

We’ve been hearing more and more about group honeymoons, and these two were ahead of the curve, “A few of our friends who had travelled over for the wedding had never been to Ireland before so after the wedding we went on a ‘buddymoon’ trip to Galway for a few days. After they went home, we then continued on to Kenmare, Dingle and an amazing night at Adare Manor on the way back to Dublin (and then back to Amsterdam via two ferries and drive across the UK!). With the weather the way it was over the summer, we couldn’t have explored Ireland in more beautiful fashion.”

Looks like the perfect summer evening! Thanks so much to Caroline and Max for letting us in on your day, and of course to This Modern Love for sharing the beautiful pictures.