I now pronounce you husband and wife.

So I often hear of girls saying they have been dreaming of their wedding day since they were small. I was never one of those girls and the thoughts of everyone staring at me made me feel ill. I’ve never been one for attention, sure i cry when people sing happy birthday to me. 

Planning a wedding from overseas was never going to be easy and the more we thought about it the more we realised it was going to be impossible. The time difference, suit fittings, food tasting and more importantly the currency conversion we were making a massive loss from dollar to euro. So why not get married abroad we thought and put the plans into action. We never wanted a big wedding and kept everything very quiet. In the lead up to the big day it was kept secret between us and our families. A lot of people asked would we liked to have family there and the answer is of course but we would never expect them to fly out here and it was far too expensive for us to come home and get married. We have booked flights for August and will celebrate when we are home but the flights alone cost us $4000. We spent less then that on the entire wedding.

Planning the wedding was pretty casual and I can honestly say thank god for Mark because he did most of the sourcing and corresponding. I ordered my dress online for approx $100 and by the time we got married I needed it taken in a bit cause I had lost some weight. I was determined to wear pink shoes. It was my stamp on the day.

  
  
 All we needed was a venue, a celebrant and a photographer once we had those we were sorted. Everything else pretty much fell into place. We had originally opted for a beach wedding but decided against it. Too windy, too busy and my biggest fear seagulls. So we opted for Mt Tamborine botanical gardens.

  
When we visited the gardens we knew straight away this was the place for us.  We confirmed the date with the celebrant and the photographer and we were set. 

Like anyone who has an event planned we became obsessed with the weather. Australia’s weather is insane you can have great weather for weeks and weeks and boom you plan something the weather changes. All week leading up to the Saturday it rained. I was devestated. The Friday night it poured down. We went to bed and just prayed it would be ok tomorrow. 

My hair and make up artist Helena arrived at 6.30am and we were off. Half way though my hair I sat there stuffing my face with a bacon sandwich and tea. You can take the girl outta Dublin but you can’t take Dublin outta the girl. 😝

 
 
By 1pm we were done and it was time to put my dress on. I felt sick, what if it didn’t fit, what if I didn’t like it. Thankfully as soon as I put it on I loved it and the hair and make up looked amazing with it. 

We made our way to the gardens and I flicked Mark a quick text to make sure he was there. One word text back. . . Yup. When I arrived the photographer was there and we took some pictures. As I made my way over the bridge I saw Mark and burst into tears. Val was telling me to stop crying cause I was going to ruin my make up but once the tears started they did not want to let up. Thankfully the rain kept off for the entire afternoon. Someone was watching over us. 

 
The Ceremony lasted about 10 minutes and before I knew it we are declared husband and wife. That was it, all done. I don’t think in the 5 years I have known Mark I have ever seen him so nervous. I thought he was going to pass out. 

   

  

  

  

We had about an hour of photographs and then went for a meal in a Greek restaurant. It was the running joke of the evening, Irish wedding in Australia eating in a Greek restaurant. There were only 7 of us there but it was a perfect day 😀.