A big fat fake wedding - the new fundraiser

FOLLOWING a whirlwind romance, West Cork bachelor Jeremiah Tomáisín Mór married his gorgeous, high-spirited Polish fiancée Yalanna Borkowski in a lavish ceremony in the village of Allihies on Saturday.

Theirs is a touching tale of love, lust, betrayal, suckler farming and the frantic search of an illegitimate love child for her one true ‘papa’.

In real life the bride and groom for this fake wedding are Deirdre O’Sullivan Owenie and Niall John L O’Sullivan. “There has been a lot of emigration from this area,” says O’Sullivan. “In fact there were no local weddings planned in the parish for this year so we decided to organise our own as a fundraiser for the local Garnish GAA club.”

They called it My Big Fat Fake Wedding, and it’s the new trend in fundraisers around the country.

It is an hour before the wedding and bridesmaids Moz O’Neill and Jane Joe O’Sullivan, resplendent in black dresses and luminous green wigs, are rummaging through the rubbish bin for the ring, the groomsman is adjusting his baling twine belt and the groom is standing in wellies on top of the tractor looking for a lost heifer. The bride, meanwhile, is stretched out on a grassy bank in her wedding dress with a large vodka.

“It is for ze nerves,” she notes in strongly accented English. “I come to zis country to find my papa. His name is ‘John Terry’ and he came to my country for coal to sell in his shop. Then he met my mother. When I look for him, I find he owns whole village.

“But he speak very fast and is hard to understand; my friend say zis because he is something called ‘some class of a culchie’. I was working in the supermarket when Jeremiah comes in. He is handling a big bunch of bananas and I think to myself what a lovely, strong man he is. Later I see he pays with Platinum Visa and has a sexy, black Audi A4. After that it is love at first sight.”

After he climbed down off the tractor, Jeremiah also recalled this poignant moment with a teary eye. “She was scanning my messages at the checkout and I thought to myself that she had lovely fast hands that would be spot on for shearing sheep,” he says. “Shearing is costly. We went on a few dates; first to a match, then a Macra meeting and finally I took her over to the island on the cable car for a bit of excitement. I popped the question down at the beach and fair dues to her, after asking me a few questions about the size of the farm and whether there was good road frontage for sites, she was mad for road.”

Meanwhile, back at the packed wedding venue — complete with top table, altar and wedding cake — the excitement was mounting. All week men had been hauling out suits from the backs of wardrobes and polishing the good shoes, and stocks of fake tan sold out as far away as Bantry.

Unfortunately the ceremony itself was marred by moments of controversy. Jeremiah spoke eloquently and thanked Yolanna for lavishing so much time and attention on the two, fine strapping young groomsmen.

Surprisingly at this point Yolanna licked her lips suggestively and audibly purred like an excited tom cat much to the surprise of the assembled guests. In a separate incident the priest — sporting an afro wig and The Illustrated Guide to the Bible — asked if anyone had reason to object. A young man rose from his seat. “She gave me this bedroom key not two weeks ago and told me she loved me,” he said. Chaos ensued as the groomsmen tackled the objector. Despite his suspicions, Jeremiah decided that, on the basis of farming practicalities, he was happy to continue.

Demonstrating a grasp of the complexities of Irish agriculture, Yolanna then gave an impassioned speech in which she vowed to help her new husband. “He is very important farmer and has share of a big mountain with hens, sheep, goats and other mysterious animal called a YU,” she said. “They also have zis thing called ‘REPS’ and another thing called ‘Single Farm Payment’. Once a year government send big cheques and zis means I can shop in Brown Thomas instead of Lidl. Happy days.”

Having completed the ceremony it was time for the first dance, the ceremonial cutting of the cake, a fast set from the wedding band Hell For Leather and that standard at all Irish weddings — over-enthusiastic dancing. It was, one patron noted, better than the real thing and no wedding gifts required.