My Wedding Day: Ciara Revins — My sister is a hairdresser so she sorted everyone’s hair — including her own

We had our wedding in Casa Santonja in Costa Blanca, Spain. We had the whole thing in the venue — a non-religious ceremony and then a party afterwards

Tue, 13 Jan, 2026 - 20:22

Deirdre McArdle

We got married on June 3, 2025. We actually got legally married in Cork a couple of weeks before that, but we didn’t really consider that our wedding day. We had our wedding in Casa Santonja in Costa Blanca.

We had the whole thing in the venue — a non-religious ceremony and then a party afterwards. We’d always loved the idea of getting married abroad, of having a wedding that was a little bit different.

And the hope was that everybody would be pretty relaxed, as they would be in holiday mode, and they might get there a few days beforehand, and then stay around afterwards — there was no pressure.

The venue, Casa Santonja, is an old house, and it actually has a small little church on site. It has gorgeous gardens and we had our ceremony outside there. Then we moved to a terrace overlooking the venue for the drinks reception, and we had the meal underneath the trees.

Ciara and Mark celebrate with Champagne.

Afterwards, we went inside for the dancing to this place that we didn’t tell people about — it was basically a cellar, and it had so much character.

It was magic, like it felt like it was a fairytale, beyond what we could have hoped for. There was something intimate about it being abroad, because, you know, your guest list then is very much the people who really want to be there. We had about 90 people, I think, on the day.

We got engaged on Christmas Day, December 2023. I started looking at dresses online early enough. There was one that, for me, was everything I would want in a dress. It was an Australian label. I discovered Bella Bleu on the South Mall had the label and had the dress. The owner there, Lucy Mitchell, said to me: “Don’t try on the dress you came in to see until last.”

So she got me trying a few other dresses, and when it came to the one that I had picked, I was putting it on, and I know this is going to sound cringy, but as I was stepping into it, I just knew "this is my dress".

Ciara's wedding dress is from Bella Bleu in Cork.

For my bridesmaids, I had my sister, and my daughter was a flower girl. She was nine, so she was almost a junior bridesmaid, but she wanted to be a flower girl! My husband Mark had his suit tailor-made in Saville Menswear and it was incredible; he designed everything about it, and even included our initials in stitching on the back of the jacket.

We got ready in the venue on the morning of the wedding. My mother, my sister and my daughter were with me. My sister is a hairdresser so she actually did my hair, and she did my mom’s, my daughter’s and her hair too... as well as being the most supportive maid of honour you could ask for. It was a lovely morning, a really special time with my family.

Ciara with her sister Aoife Revins and her daughter Fiadh Revins.

Music played a huge part in our day. Obviously, I play music every day in my job so it was so important to us to have it throughout the day. We had a vocalist during the ceremony accompanied by a piano, and she was amazing. I walked down the aisle to a slowed-down version of 'We Found Love in a Hopeless Place' by Rihanna.

And then at the drinks reception we had the same vocalist but this time she was accompanied by a lady on the saxophone, and that was great. She really got the crowd going, walking in among them and all.

I had put together a playlist to play in the background during the meal. I’d been curating it for a good few months; it was just chilled background music really. Then we had the speeches, and we all made one, even my daughter, who wrote her speech in invisible ink! She was brilliant.

We had our first dance outside, underneath the trees, which were strung with fairylights. We danced to 'Ordinary' by Alex Warren. It was lovely. And then we moved inside for the band and the DJ.

Because it was a venue and not a hotel, and we were bussing people back to our base in Calpe, there was a cut-off time for the party. I think we finished up around 2am. We were a half hour from Calpe and there were sing songs going on on the buses at that time. When we got there, some people went on to some bars there but we went to bed at that stage.

I couldn’t pick one favourite moment from the day, but when I walked up the aisle and got to Mark, he was pretty emotional. And it was just that feeling when we were standing together and sitting together that just was electric; we were absolutely buzzing. It was so special, like it just felt like everything was coming together, and it was the start of our journey together.