My Wedding Day with Orla McAndrew: 'I didn’t make a speech but I would if I were doing it again'

Orla McAndrew and her husband Steve on their wedding day in 2013.

We got married on October 12, 2013. We were living in Scotland, but we had the wedding in the church in Ballintotis in East Cork. 

It was where my parents were living at the time, and though I’m not religious I love that church by the lake.

Afterwards, we went to the hotel in Garryvoe. When my granny was alive, she absolutely loved a day trip to Garryvoe and she would have her lunch there in the hotel. So we have a real affinity for the hotel, as a family.

It was a fine day, for October. The rain held off. We were even eating ice creams, although that was just for the photographs!

It was a pretty big wedding — around 180 guests. Once my parents started inviting people, the list started going up pretty quickly! But it was a lovely, big celebration.

We had originally planned to get married earlier that year, in May, but, in the meantime, I became pregnant, so we changed the date. And our first little girl, who was 10 months at the time, was at our wedding. She was the real star of the show.

I had found a lovely, 1950s vintage dress with a short-cape feature. It was beautiful. A few weeks before the wedding, I brought it to a seamstress for a final fitting and she made some adjustments that absolutely ruined the dress for me. I ended up hating it. You don’t get over these things!

The morning of the wedding felt surreal. Like, ‘Oh, it’s happening today’. I didn’t have any nerves, I was excited. But I did feel out of my body. I had stayed in my parents’ house the night before and first thing that morning I looked out my bedroom window, and my dad had mowed ‘Orla and Steve’ in to the lawn. He must have been mowing in the middle of the night. It was brilliant and put a smile on my face from the get-go.

One of my lasting memories of the day was when I came into the church and Steve didn’t see me coming down the aisle, as he was so involved with our little girl, who’d just come in before me. Seeing the smile on his face as he looked at her just melted my heart.

Orla McAndrew and her husband Steve on their wedding day in 2013.

At the hotel, then, obviously, food is massively important to me. I think food and music are the two most important things on your wedding day. Everybody talks about them; if they’re right, it’s amazing, and if they’re wrong, it’s a bit of a disaster. The hotel were amazing, like a well-oiled machine, and even though the menu tasting hadn’t gone well, on the day the food was outstanding.

I have to say, I have a lot of respect for cake makers now, and I’ve seen the effort that goes in to making a wedding cake. But on the day, myself, I had zero interest in the cake. But it was beautiful. My mom’s friend made it for us, and one of our friends made a clay cake topper of the two of us for the cake, which we still have today.

Afterwards, then, we had the speeches, and they were your fairly standard speeches. I didn’t make a speech; I hadn’t even thought to do one, actually, but it’s the one thing I would change if I were doing it again. I would have gotten up and thanked everyone there, in my way, and have my say.

For our first dance, we had Buddy Holly’s True Love Ways. And I’m getting emotional thinking about that now, but it brings back lovely memories from my childhood. My favourite uncle introduced me to Buddy Holly.

Orla McAndrew and her husband Steve with their daughter on their wedding day in 2013.

FOR the band, we had a beautiful group of talented people who played on the day. We had a friend, who I knew was a musician. I had asked him if he could bring a group together for our wedding. And he did, and they were incredible, but I found out later he was struggling to get people together, and even two days before the wedding he was still running around trying to find musicians. Of course, I was blissfully unaware of this.

On the night, then, it was great craic, everyone was up dancing. I remember being passed along over everyone’s heads at one point. I stayed up well in to the night; I thought, ‘This is my one day off now without our daughter and I’m going to enjoy it.’

I knew we were going to be heading off on a little ‘mini moon’. My husband was organising that, and I thought we would be going somewhere in Ireland and we’d arranged for our little girl to be minded by my parents. But then, on the Monday morning, Steve said, ‘We’re actually going to go to Italy.’ I love Italy, so I was absolutely thrilled. And then, he said he’d also booked a ticket for our daughter to come with us, and that was just lovely. So we had a week in Italy.

• As part of Cork on a Fork, Orla McAndrew is hosting Breaking Bread, an immersive evening on August 15 in St Peter’s Church in Cork.

• Orla’s book, Larder, published by Blasta Books is out now.