My Wedding Day with Orla Hennelly: GAA weddings tend to be in the winter
Rob and Orla Hennelly sharing a laugh during their wedding ceremony. Pictures: Gareth Lima Conlon
We got married on December 9, 2022. It’s not that I always wanted a winter wedding, it was more so because my husband plays football. GAA weddings tend to be in the winter when football season's over.
We had the wedding in Powerscourt Hotel in Wicklow. We’d gotten engaged in December 2020, right in the middle of covid so we were a bit worried about what would happen. We couldn’t really go in person to look at any venues, so we were looking at the websites – we booked the Powerscourt online and thankfully it worked out really well.
We had the ceremony in a church in Shankill, which was only about 10 minutes from the venue.
It was a big wedding, about 250 guests. My husband played football and was on a few teams at the time; I think 210 of the guests were his and 40 were mine!
When it came to the planning, we relied a lot on people or suppliers we’d already met, or someone had recommended. With the band, we booked The Swing Cats because we’d been to a ball a few years before and they were playing and we really liked them. Then a friend of mine was starting a videography business at the time, we were her first wedding, and since then she's done incredible weddings, and she's had videos in and everything. And then the photographer that we booked was Derek McConnell, who had done my brother's wedding.
When it came to the dress, I came across it online. I loved it, but it was out of budget. Then I saw that they were doing a trunk show where you get discount dresses in London. So, I flew over and just bought it.
I worked in fashion at the time, so I was excited about the dress. Obviously, it was going to be in December, so I was thinking a long sleeve. And I didn't want a traditional wedding dress. I wanted something a little bit different. The dress I picked wasn’t actually a wedding dress; it was a red-carpet dress.
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Because the wedding was in December, I knew there was going to be Christmas decorations at the hotel. We complemented that with our colour scheme — white and green and red — so, I did red berries with white roses, for example.
The weather that day was so gorgeous. There was a little bit of frost on the ground, and it was dry, not windy, with a little bit of fog.
On the morning, I was happy and a little bit nervous. I was really excited to get ready. My granny, who was in her 90s, was there with me and she was getting her hair and makeup done with us. That started the day off in a lovely way.
It was funny, I had gotten my bridesmaids matching pyjamas to wear that morning. My granny said to my mom at one point, "Aren’t the help in the hotel great all the same!”. She thought all my bridesmaids were there to serve her. We laughed so much at that.
When I got to the church and saw Rob at the top of the aisle, I was so excited. When I got to him, it all felt a bit surreal and the two of us just couldn't stop laughing. We have nice photos of us just laughing at the top of the aisle like, ‘what's going on?’
Afterwards at the drinks reception, Rob had booked a magician that he really liked. I wasn’t sure about it, but he was really funny. We also had a violinist playing during the drinks and that was lovely.
For the party then, the band were excellent. Our first dance was to by Thin Lizzy, which the band sang live. There were total professionals, and they suited Christmas time at the hotel; they all wore black tie, for example.
Because of the timing, people were happy to be out after being locked up through covid for so long — it was a lot of people's first wedding since the pandemic. That meant everyone was up dancing most of the night.
I’m an introverted type of person so throughout the evening I wanted to get some quiet moments with Rob. We went back to the room a couple of times to just process it all and have some quiet time. We felt so lucky that all our family and friends were able to make it, because obviously it had been a hard two years. We were so grateful.
My best memories of the day are getting up to the top of the altar and seeing all our families and friends, and seeing all the style and the fashion was great too. And of course, getting ready with my granny on the morning was such a special part of the day.
- Orla Hennelly runs a company called It’s Beauty Cheats where she sells products like Lobe Lifts and No Nips. Instagram: @itsbeautycheats
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