My Wedding Day with Suzanne Kane: The priest forgot to marry us. We had to go back and do it properly

Joey Donnelly and Suzanne Kane's wedding

We got married on October 19, 2013. We had the ceremony in St John’s Church in Killenard, Co Laois, and ‘the afters’ were in the Heritage Hotel, which was just across the road from the church.

Suzanne Kane: 'There was a beautiful porch at the front of the church where we had planned to fix my dress and take photos but we had to rush into the church out of the rain. My poor bridesmaids got soaked!'

When we got married, we were in that stage where all our friends were getting married. We were all on the circuit. And one of the only places our pals hadn’t had their weddings was the Heritage. We got engaged in November 2012 and in January 2013 we went to see the Heritage and we booked it there and then.

I have a thing about the number 19; I was born on the 19th, my dad was born on the 19th, and I met Joey on the 19th, so I wanted to get married on the 19th. October made the most sense to us because of the GAA fixtures, as Joey was playing at the time.

We’re both from Templeogue in Dublin but there were two reasons we didn’t want to have the wedding in Templeogue...

Suzanne Kane: 'I made a speech and my mom did too. Joey’s grandad was alive at the time and he made a speech, and he welcomed me into the family with a plaque he’d got made. It was lovely.'

One, we knew we’d lose half the people to either the McDonald’s or the pub between the church and the hotel, and two, my dad’s funeral had been in the church in Templeogue and I felt like I couldn’t walk down the aisle of that church. I would be missing him anyway on the day, but I wanted it to be a happy day.

We only had eight or nine months to organise everything for the wedding but it was grand because we were going to so many weddings at the time we were able to spot ideas and
suppliers we liked. That really helped.

For my dress, I’d seen one I loved online, but then it was about finding somewhere that could get the dress to me in the short timeline. But I did and it was exactly what I wanted.

I had three bridesmaids — a friend of mine and both of Joey’s sisters. They wore beautiful navy dresses.

It absolutely lashed rain on the day of the wedding. I wasn’t too bothered in general, but trying to get out of the car at the church was a nightmare because the rain was so heavy. T,

here was a beautiful porch at the front of the church where we had planned to fix my dress and take photos but we had to rush into the church out of the rain. My poor bridesmaids got soaked!

Music is so important to us and we wanted it to be a big part of the day. Joey’s dad was in a choir at the time so they sang in the church and it was beautiful. Then one of Joey’s best friends is an incredible singer — he sang me up the aisle to Gold by Fergus O’Farrell, and then sang us both down the aisle to Declan O’Rourke’s Your World.

It was so funny. The priest forgot to marry us during the ceremony. The parish priest, who must have been following the ceremony from the sacristy, stuck his head out the door and told the best man “he hasn’t actually married them”. Sure enough, he hadn’t.

We had to go back three pages in the booklet to the part he’d missed — the important part — and do it properly!

Afterwards then we all went across the road to the hotel for the party. We had the meal and did the speeches. I made a speech and my mom did too. Joey’s grandad was alive at the time and he made a speech, and he welcomed me into the family with a plaque he’d got made. It was lovely.

We had our first dance to Snow Patrol’s Just Say Yes. It’s slow at the start and then it becomes a danc-y pop-y song. We wanted everyone to come on to the dance floor and dance with us.

The DJ was Darragh O’Dea, I worked with him at the time in radio, and he’s a deadly DJ. We wanted loads of hits and people to have loads of fun, and that’s what he did. He said to me later that one of his overriding memories of our day was me jumping up and down on the dancefloor to Maniac 2000 by Mark McCabe and my dress coming up with me.

Once the DJ finished we all went to the residents’ bar and the guitars came out. We had a great sing-song well into the night. I think we gave up around 3 or 4am, and we left them to it. It was great craic.

Before our wedding somebody gave me a great piece of advice. They said: “At some point in the evening go into a corner of the room and just sit and watch people at your wedding.”

We did that together for 10 minutes, just watching people dancing and chatting and eating the sandwiches and, you know, doing all those kind of things.

It was a lovely moment to see everyone we loved having so much fun.

• Suzanne Kane is a radio DJ and TV presenter. She shares snippets of her life on Instagram at @Suzanne.fm