Mr & Mrs Knight

You are going to love this inspirational wedding!

Fiona & Shane stamped their personality on their big day with unique DIY’d wedding details .

Their hearts overflow with love for those around them. Their family and guests absolutely finished it with amount of happiness and smiles 🙂

All that in one of my favourite locations for wedding photos – Bunratty Folk Park and Bunratty Castle Hotel with the best staff on board. They helped to make the most memorable day .

And me? What can I say… This is why I love my job!

Enjoy

Olga – MrsRedhead -Wedding Photography Ireland

Fiona & Shane -Mr & Mrs Knight superhero night – Bunratty Castle Hotel Wedding

“We met just over five and a half years ago in a pub called Lils in Kildare. Shane and his friend were out for Shane’s birthday, and we began talking about a notoriously strong drink that the pub served. Fast forward to three and a half years later, and Shane proposed while away on our anniversary in Co. Cork.

We spent quite a lot of time searching for a venue that we loved, and after four months of travelling each weekend searching out places, we found Bunratty Castle Hotel. Recently renovated, with an amazing wedding co-ordinator in the form of Heather, and with a General Manager like no other, David, we knew it was perfect for us.

: When trying to decide a theme for the wedding, we couldn’t actually decide on one idea – all we knew was we wanted to inject some of our personality into the day while maintaining traditional aspects that are guests would have been expecting. At the church, although I walked down the aisle to Canon in D, songs by Jack Johnson, The Beach Boys, Paramore and Metallica were played during the ceremony. We could hear a murmur of recognition when the church musicians started into their stripped down version of “Nothing Else Matters” – it sounded incredible.

: When it came to photographers, I initially struggled with the idea of being followed around by someone with a camera all day. For a long time before our engagement I did not like photos being taken of me – especially full length ones. I was very conscious of my weight, especially standing beside Shane who is tall and slim, and it really left us in a bind thinking about photos being taken on the day. We even discussed the possibility of a completely unplugged wedding – not just our guests not taking pictures, but no photographers either. Obviously, this upset us both as we would have no physical memories of our day, but at the time I felt it was the only option for how I felt. About a year and a half before our wedding day, (we decided to have a long engagement) I signed up for a local slimming class, and never looked back. On my wedding day, I weighed in 143 pounds (72 kg) lighter than I had been on the first day I weighed in. Not only that, but we had two photographers and a videographer on the day. A major difference from where we first started out! I found Olga from Mrs Redhead Photography online, and after looking through her website, her blog and her Facebook page, I was so intrigued by her work that we called her to set up a meeting. From the start, Olga went above and beyond for our day. We decided to do an engagement shoot (which I would advise all couple to do if possible), and spent one early Saturday morning in a cinema in Limerick. It was such a blast, and really prepared us for the pictures on the wedding day. On the day of the wedding, along with our second shooter Alex they felt like part of the family as we got ready in the home place. They were such an important part of the day, and the photographs which they have produced will be treasured and looked at for years to come.

: Making our own mark on our day was important to us. As an Irish Catholic wedding, there’s not much you can do to stand out, and make your own – but we certainly tried. We incorporated a lot of DIY aspects into the day – all the stationary was designed and created by me, from the invitations, mass booklets, name tags, menus and signage in the venue. I have such a love for brown Kraft paper, as I feel it gives a rustic vibe, so we used this to help us in the rest of the decorations on the day. We had our hashtag for the day printed on all our stationary too, check out #dancingtheknightaway for behind the scene pictures and posts. We collected glass jars, tied them with burlap and lace, and the day before the wedding filled them with flowers from Lidl and Aldi – they looked perfect.

: We decided to continue on from our engagement shoot, showing our love for movies by naming our tables after movie titles, and using pictures of minimalistic movie posters that I found online for the table plan and the tables themselves. We called our table after one of our favourite films in recent years “Guardians of the Galaxy”, and our cake toppers were POP figurines from the same film – Star lord and Gamora. We played instrumental film scores in the background during our meal, with nods to Harry Potter, LOTR, and Tim Burton. We also love superheroes so Shane and his groomsmen wore superhero t-shirts underneath their shirts, while Shane also wore his favourite Superman socks. Shane loves to read anime so his nod to that was to make 1,000 paper cranes. We had read before that there is an ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by the God. We loved that idea although at times Shane did say he’d like to use the wish to make the rest of them. Shane and his brother Ian also created the giant LOVE letters which lit up behind us during our meal. They were definitely the one pinterest idea I fell in love with. Seven days before the wedding, I managed to purchase a few packs of beer face masks – they were probably one of the funniest things about the whole day. Even the older members of the family got in on the action, and then surprised us even more by jumping into the photo booth we had planned for later that night.

: There was not one thing we regret about doing on the day – we set out to try and have as fun a day as possible with the people who we wanted to celebrate with us. We spent the whole day smiling, and when we look back on it, all we can remember is the smiles on people’s faces all day and the laughs from the different groups. The best advice we could give people about to be married, as clichéd as it is, is to not stress on the day itself. The day before our wedding we decided that whatever happened, happened – we weren’t going to spend the night before our wedding making decorations, or stressing about decisions we’d made. If fact, I deleted my Pinterest inspiration boards so I wouldn’t be focused on what other people’s wedding looked like – ours was about to become a reality. And finally, pick a good first dance song – we went for a fast paced number, and it got people in such a good mood for the rest of the night. I don’t think the dance floor emptied once – a sign of a good Irish wedding!