My Wedding Day with Sinead Sheppard: 'Being from Cobh, I had to get married in the cathedral'

I have a background in the arts, so music played a big part in our day. We had the Carrigtwohill Gospel Choir singing in the cathedral, and it was beautiful

Sinéad Sheppard and her husband Eamonn Ó Caoimh from Glanmire, Cork at Cobh Cathedral on their wedding day. Picture: David Clynch

We got married on September 7, 2012, in Cobh Cathedral. Being from Cobh, I was never going to get married anywhere else! We had the afters in Barnabrow House in East Cork.

We were adamant that we wanted somewhere that you could take over for the weekend; we wanted just a house, that it’s just you and your guests. We had about 125 people at the wedding.

We got engaged the previous August, so we were planning the wedding for about a year. I did it all myself. I really enjoyed the planning and didn’t find it stressful at all.

I had a good idea of what I wanted. I’m into vintage stuff, so we had beautiful wildflowers and I spent the year in between our engagement and the day of the wedding collecting different china cups, plates and saucers from auctions and charity shops to use on the day.

I also collected about 340 old and vintage jars. We filled them with candles and lined the pathways in Barnabrow with them. It looked beautiful when it got dark, even if our bridal party individually had to go around lighting hundreds of candles! They lit up the way between the main house, the lodge and the little cottages where our guests were staying the night.

Sinead Sheppard and her husband Eamonn on their wedding day.  Picture: David Clynch

Continuing with the vintage theme, my wedding dress was a vintage lace dress, and I got a Spanish mantilla lace veil made, too. I found the dress shopping so easy. My dress was the second one I tried on — I loved it.

But I thought to myself, I should try on some more dresses just to make sure, and I did, but then I just went back to that one. It was exactly what I was looking for.

I had five bridesmaids and Eamonn had five groomsmen (including his best man, his brother). Eamonn and I have been together since we were 16, and we’d always hung around together in a big group of friends, so we wanted them to be part of our day.

Looking back on photos, I’m so delighted we had our friends with us, we’re all still really close, and we’ve been friends for so long.

Because of my background in the arts, music also played a big part in our day.

We had the Carrigtwohill Gospel Choir singing in the cathedral, and it was beautiful. We had a jazz band during the drinks reception in Barnabrow, and we had the Singing Waiters during the meal. That was back 14 years ago, when the Singing Waiters wouldn’t have been that well known, so people were so surprised by them.

Sinead Sheppard, her husband Eamonn and their wedding party on the big day. Picture: David Clynch

The morning of the wedding, I was so excited to get going.

I remember telling Eamonn and his family to make sure they were there before everything started at 1pm as I was going to be there bang on time!

I wanted to get every second out of my day.

We were driving to the cathedral and I remember seeing friends of ours making their way to the church, seeing me pass in the car and having to hurry up!

I arrived at the cathedral as the 1pm bells were ringing. Those friends told me later they saw me passing and were like, “We need to step on it, she’s here already!”.

It was an absolute scorcher of a day. We’d had an awful summer, so to have this amazing day was just brilliant. We were able to have the drinks reception outside in the gardens in Barnabrow.

Sinead Sheppard and her husband Eamonn on their wedding day. Picture: David Clynch

We’d had a few photos taken in the cathedral and some more then in the gardens, but we were so keen to get back to our guests to spend time with them.

We were back and all before the drinks reception was over.

We had the speeches before the meal, just so people wouldn’t feel nervous during the meal. And then we had the band and the DJ afterwards. Everyone was up dancing for the whole night, really. Our first dance was to UB40.

We had the band playing until around 12pm, and then we had a friend of ours who did the DJ for us. He played on til about 5am!

At a certain time, we’d moved the party out of the main house into the lodge house, where he had set up his decks and we partied on there.

I just remember, plain as it sounds, feeling so happy and so blessed. I wouldn’t change a single thing.

If I were to get married all over again tomorrow, I’d do everything the exact same. Everything fell into place for us, with the weather and being able to use the gardens — everything was just brilliant.