My Wedding Day with Maeve Madden: The rain was biblical but the party went on until morning

The legal ceremony and the church wedding were held more than six months apart

Tue, 25 Nov, 2025 - 20:00

Deirdre McArdle

We had two ceremonies — the first was the legal ceremony, which we had in London on December 10, 2021. So we were legally married at that point.

Then we had our church wedding the following year on June 24, 2022.

We had that wedding in Adare, in the church in the village, and then back to Adare Manor for the reception. Adare holds a special place in our hearts — it was the destination for the first trip my husband Andrew took with my parents. It’s such a special place. And it doesn’t hurt that it has a lovely golf course, and my husband is an avid golfer.

The church in Adare is also beautiful — it has a lovely medieval vibe to it. It sets a beautiful scene. It’s lovely and intimate. We had a full choir singing at the church and they were just gorgeous. I walked down the aisle to the choir singing Ave Maria and how it sounded in the church was just amazing.

Maeve Madden and Andrew had their wedding reception at Adare Manor

It wasn’t a particularly big wedding. There were about 140 guests. It would have been less but my mam had a lot of guests.

We worked with a wedding planner to organised the wedding. We were living in Dubai at the time so we needed someone at home to organise everything. We worked with Lindsey from House of Hannah. She was a dream to work with — very lovely, calm, and organised. She really listened to my ideas and made sure everything worked out beautifully without causing stress.

Maeve Madden and Andrew with their wedding cake

Dress Disaster

I did have a bit of a disaster with my wedding dress. I’d bought it in London and they’d done a few alterations to it. But then, when I brought it home and was trying it on, the bodice fell apart at the seams. It was too late then to try to bring it back to the shop in London as I was home in Northern Ireland at that stage.

So, as it happens, the shop called Blush in Belfast, where we got the bridesmaids’ dresses, said: “Bring the dress into us, we’ll fix it.”

They were just the best Irish, no-nonsense women. And they did fix it. They were wonderful.

Our theme for the wedding was opulent elegance. I wanted something that looked timeless and classic. Our bridesmaids’ dress were black, and Andrew and the groomsmen wore top hats and tails. We also went black tie for the guests.

We kept everything classic — my bouquet was all white flowers and our table settings were the palest pink flowers.

Weather Woes

We got married in the middle of summer but, no lie, when I opened the curtains on the morning of the wedding, I have never seen rain like it. It was biblical. It rained the entire time up until after the ceremony.

We got back to the hotel and the clouds cleared for about an hour, so we got some outside photos done, which was amazing. We had a whole team with us, following us with umbrellas just in case, and making sure the dress wasn’t getting ruined. But once we had the photos done, it didn’t matter any more, even though it rained again the whole evening.

Maeve Madden: "Our theme for the wedding was opulent elegance. I wanted something that looked timeless and classic. Our bridesmaids' dress were black, and Andrew and the groomsmen wore top hats and tails. We also went black tie for the guests."

Aside from the weather, on the morning I was surprisingly calm. I think because we had already had the legal wedding the December before.

Now I have to say, on that day, I’d been so nervous. And even Andrew, my husband, had been really nervous on the legal day. Maybe because we were technically married, I found the big wedding was so relaxing.

A lot of people had advised us to really embrace the day, to take our time and enjoy every moment, because it’s over in a flash. So that’s what we did.

Throughout the day, we took a couple of moments away from everyone, just the two of us. Lindsay, the wedding planner, had suggested that to us. I remember she took us to our room just before the dinner while everyone was being seated.

She had a bottle of champagne in the room, and myself and Andrew took 15 minutes there to have a glass of champagne and just step away from it all for a while.

Maeve Madden: "Throughout the day, we took a couple of moments away from everyone, just the two of us. Lindsay, the wedding planner, had suggested that to us."

The First Dance

For our first dance, we danced to At Last by Etta James. We both love that song. We had a band called The Event Band. There must have been about 10 or 12 of them — and everyone went wild for them.

Two of the girls were singing, and then there was a girl with a violin, and there was a saxophone, and a whole band. They were amazing, they really brought the party to life.

I had changed into a dance party dress at that stage, and Lindsay came along with slippers from the hotel, so myself and my bridesmaids were all wearing the hotel slippers on the dance floor. Everybody really let loose. I remember the party went on till six or seven in the morning, with people still up having drinks and enjoying themselves.

Maeve Madden and Andrew on the dancefloor

We had a celebration the next day as well in Billy Chawke’s pub. That was totally casual, with a traditional Irish vibe to it. We had a trad band in and everyone went up and did some Irish dancing, and it was really good fun.