Private Elopement in Ireland, Handfasting Ceremony In Ruined Doonmacfelim Castle - Doolin E&J

Private Elopement in Ireland, Handfasting Ceremony In Ruined Doonmacfelim Castle – Doolin E&J

” James wanted me to get married in a castle, somewhere in Ireland, with a very small group of people to keep the event low key.

We went for simple and relaxed. We wanted the day to be easy and stress-free.

It turned out better than I expected and was a really fun, amusing and spectacular day that we got to share with limited group of family and friends

Niall and Darra made our decision easy – they were simply brilliant and that made the selection of Sea View House as our vendor an easy choice. The castle was one of their suggestions and as soon as we saw pictures I loved it and it had to be the place we had the main ceremony. The added bonus was that it was on private land so the ceremony would remain private. It was only on the day of the wedding that we found out we were the first couple to have a ceremony there since the castle became a ruin.

My father gave me a roman coin he’d found to incorporate into my wedding necklace as “my something old”. My mother gave me a silver sixpence with her birth year on it for my something borrowed. We have two dogs which are really important to both of us so we decided to be handfasted with their lead – which just so happened to fit in with my colours: red and ivory. The private and intimate feel of the wedding made for a simply perfect day for us.

Olga – Mrs Redhead Photography was simply amazing.

She quietly and effortlessly worked herself into the many pre-ceremony activities and managed to capture many candid images that reflected our day perfectly. During the ceremony at the B&B and later at the Castle, Olga fit so perfectly with our group that she seemed to be part of the wedding party whilst all the time capturing the most perfect photos. I could not recommend her highly enough.

James and I met online via a dating site. We spoke via messages for a while and after a few months of failed attempts to meet we had our first date at Yard & Coop in Manchester but, as we were both nervous and unwell we didn’t put our best selves forward during the date to the point that we both thought that we didn’t like each other. The following day, after wondering why something that felt so right via messages didn’t go so well face to face, I plucked up some courage to send a message to James to say I wanted to meet him again – we did meet again and 3yrs later James proposed. Incidentally, after some time dating, it turned out that James and I had mutual acquaintances and we had never been aware of this.

Where did you go on honeymoon?

We went to Osaka, Japan. We had an amazing two weeks and would definitely recommend anyone should visit there – the food is amazing as Osaka is the food centre of Japan.