Gwenn & Cob

Intimate Elopement Wedding At Fanningstown Castle , ireland – MrsRedhead Photography & D.art Wedding Stories

Our wedding was exactly how we wanted it. It was low-key and relaxed.

We wanted a destination wedding with only immediate family and our closest friends.

The big priority we had from the beginning was to have a relaxed day, surrounded by close friends and family.

We knew from the beginning that the best way to do that was to do a destination wedding.

I knew from the beginning that I wanted Olga – MrsRedhead Photography as our photographer. Each of her photos feels like an action shot; it’s like you are part of every wedding she has captured. We even second-guessed getting a videographer just based on what she brings to each photo. Olga is also a true artist. Her final product truly reflects the unique and special style of the people she’s photographing.

We were so excited to finally meet Olga. She is so much fun and was just a lovely person to be around. Every person attending our wedding told us after how much they loved our photographer. Cobb and I also aren’t particularly big on photoshoots but she put everyone at ease, and this came through in the photographs. We were amazed what Olga was able to capture and how beautiful our pictures came out. We have a slideshow of our wedding pictures continually on display at home, and we can’t help but stop and look through all the special moments.

Fanningstown Castle beat our expectations as our wedding venue. It’s a truly special place. We loved the fact that we could make ourselves at home and have the entire run of the place to ourselves. We stayed at the Fanningstown Castle for three nights and were able to house almost our entire party there. We also loved that Adare, which is beautiful, was just down the road.

Mary, who runs Fanningstown, was also extremely helpful and just generally indispensable for us planning everything an ocean away. She suggested local stylists, florists, and bakeries. She also served as our day-of coordinator.

We had already done the big party in New Orleans prior to our ceremony in Ireland. For us, we wanted to keep our wedding ceremony low-key, surrounded by our closest friends and families. I loved that we had everyone sitting in a circle around us. It was intimate and felt like the people there were truly all part of the ceremony.

Because we were in Ireland for our ceremony, we wanted to incorporate as much Celtic traditions into our ceremony. Our officiant Janet Grogan was great at introducing these traditions into the ceremony in a way that made it personal for us. We especially loved the sand ceremony, where we poured together sand from New Orleans (where Gwen is from), Alabama (where Cobb is from), and Ireland.

Cobb and I first met at a company we both used to work for. I had been working there for almost a year when Cobb joined the company. Cobb’s boss was walking him around the office to introduce him to his new coworkers when he introduced him to me. I remember when we first met, I started blushing uncontrollably, and all I could think was, “Pull yourself together, Gwen.”

Our teams worked right next to each other. We like to think that our teams were the fun teams in the office. (The median age outside our teams skewed much older.) Our teams would regularly joke around by our cubicles, in the break room, and at happy hour after work. We especially bonded over talks at happy hour, where we learned we had a lot of common interests, such as animals and traveling.

My mom was born in London, so I grew up following the British royal family. My mom and I woke up bright and early to watch Will and Kate’s wedding; therefore per tradition, Cobb and I woke up bright and early for Harry and Meghan’s wedding.

When I got up at 3:00 AM, I was surprised to see that Cobb not only had all the live coverage ready to go, but he also had a handmade poster up of all our four pets dressed in crowns. I was so excited about the poster and preparing a traditional British breakfast for Cobb and my mom that I had no idea there was another side to the poster. It wasn’t until the next morning after breakfast that Cobb mentioned that there was another side to the poster. When he flipped the poster, he revealed that there were a bunch of pictures with us with crowns. Below one of the pictures, there was an arrow instructing me to look behind that photo. Underneath the photo, it read “Turn around.” When I did, Cobb was on one knee, where he asked, “Will you be my princess?”. I, of course, said yes, and the rest is history 🙂