Wedding of the Week: Cork bride and groom who met through Macra

...and the groom proposed by hiding the engagement sparkler in a jar in the vegetable patch in the couple's garden!

Bríd Collins and William Maybury. Pictures: Mark Coombes

Sat, 22 Jul, 2023 - 18:00

Eve Kelliher

West Cork couple Bríd Collins and William Maybury got to know one another through their involvement in Macra na Feirme.

Five years after they began dating, William proposed by “planting” an engagement ring in their vegetable plot at Enniskeane.

Bríd Collins and her bridal party are inspired by The Beatles' Abbey Road album cover. Pictures: Mark Coombes

William, from Ballineen, and Bríd, from Clonakilty, were married in the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Clonakilty, on June 16, by Fr Tom Hayes.

“We first met through Macra in late 2016 when Bríd was performing in a variety show competition (Capers),” says William. “We were in different clubs, Dunmanway and Clonakilty, but our paths crossed quite often and we began dating in June 2017.”

They got engaged on June 17, 2022. “William had hidden the ring in a jar and put it down in the vegetable patch in our garden,” says Bríd.

But Bríd didn’t unearth the sparkler right away: “I would go down every day after work to see how things were growing. One Thursday, in particular, William was very interested to see how I got on and if I had found anything — but I had not, I completely missed it and thought he was just asking if any more strawberries were ready! Take two, Friday arrived, off I went down the garden and there it was in amongst the carrots with a note asking the big question!”

After they exchanged vows, they held their reception in the Eccles Hotel & Spa in Glengarriff.

“We both wanted a summer wedding with a casual vibe,” says the bride.

As for the event? “It was magic,” says Bríd. “And it’s really the things that went ‘wrong’ that made the day ours — like the laugh we had when William’s sister was going through a list of things we needed the evening before the wedding and we never realised we needed candles for the church. Or when we were let in to Teach Beag for a photo behind the half door and warned the red paint was fresh, William ended up with red hands and being dragged to the local library by Aisling (bridesmaid) to get it off with alcohol gel.

Bríd Collins and friends on her wedding day. Pictures: Mark Coombes

“Or when my brother’s guitar wouldn’t connect to the speaker for the recessional song in the ceremony — so while he got that sorted my friend Mary told us all to ‘whisht a while!’ before we could walk down the aisle, which made the whole church laugh. Or when my nephew had a meltdown walking down the aisle, went on strike and was overtaken by a bridesmaid before he decided to run the rest of the aisle.”

Bríd Collins and William Maybury with their wedding party. Pictures: Mark Coombes

Helping them celebrate were Bríd’s parents, Noreen and John, and William’s parents, Ann and Ger. Also wishing them well was the bride’s grandmother Nell who watched the Mass from home via live stream.

Bríd’s sisters Eimear and Dee Collins and her friend Aisling Healy were by her side as bridesmaids while William’s friends John Murphy and Dan Lynch were his groomsmen.

Their friends Joseph O’Sullivan, Anna Quinn, and Mary Sheehan, and Bríd’s brother Seán Collins and aunt Mary Collins performed music at the ceremony.

Bríd designed her own wedding gown after visiting two bridal boutiques: “I didn’t see anything for me but I did like parts of certain dresses, so I drew the dress I wanted and thankfully, Sue Pearce (of Sue Pearce Couture) agreed to make it.” The bridal makeup was by Siobhán O’Mahony, with hairstyling by Donna O’Neill (Pin-Up Hair).

William was dapper in a Marc Darcy suit from Tom Murphy’s in Cork and the groomsmen wore Benetti suits from Deasy Suit Hire, Rossmore. Mark Coombes was their photographer and Adam Fleming of West Cork Weddings was the videographer. The floral arrangements were by Ruth Fortune and the cake was by Helen Medcalf of HM Cakes.

Friends and family performed in the church.

The newlyweds travelled in style in a 1966 Ford Corsair and will exchange it for a campervan for their 25-night honeymoon in New Zealand, finishing the trip with four nights in Sydney.

Bríd is a speech and language therapist at CUH and William is a planner for Merck in Carrigtwohill. The couple live in Enniskeane.