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Real Weddings: Victoria and Cormac’s ethereal white wedding in Dublin
Image / Style / Weddings

Christina Brosnan

Real Weddings: Victoria and Cormac’s ethereal white wedding in Dublin


by Shayna Sappington
03rd May 2024

Victoria and Cormac recently celebrated the wedding of their dreams at the gorgeous Merrion Hotel in Dublin. The day's elegant details and décor were as exquisite as the bride's Milla Nova dress.

THE COUPLE
Victoria, law librarian, and Cormac, management consultant.

THEY LIVE
in Blackrock, Co Dublin.

THE VENUE
The Merrion Hotel, Dublin.

PHOTOGRAPHER
Christina Brosnan.

THEY MET
In The Market Bar in Dublin in July 2018, leading to a year of dating between two towns. I was living and working in Belfast at the time, and Cormac was in Dublin, so we alternated weekends and took turns planning dates in our respective cities before I made the move to Dublin in 2019.

THE PROPOSAL
Cormac proposed (completely unexpectedly) on the side of a snowy mountain in Lech, Austria. It was a crisp day with bright blue skies, and the view was breathtaking. Cormac has skied in Lech since childhood, and it was the first place we visited on holiday together early on in our relationship, and now a place of such special memories for us.

THE DRESS AND THE SUIT
My wedding dress was by Ukrainian designer Milla Nova and purchased at Verona Bridal in Northern Ireland. Cormac’s tuxedo was custom-made by Louis Copeland.

THE CEREMONY 
The ceremony took place in the light-filled Wellington Room at The Merrion Hotel with 55 of our closest friends and relatives. It was a humanist ceremony officiated by Emer Dillon, allowing us to personalise as much as we wanted.

My grandmother, who has been married to my grandfather for over 62 years, spoke during the ceremony. She gave words of advice for our marriage and recited a beautiful poem she had memorised. She had everyone in tears – it was so special and one of the wonderful advantages of a humanist wedding.

THE RECEPTION
Afterwards, our reception was also in the Merrion Hotel. We kept our guest list small and invited only our closest friends and family, so we never felt like our wedding had to be anything but exactly how we wanted it. We tried not to get caught up in pleasing others and picked our favourite foods, our own style of music and performers. We chose quality over quantity in all aspects of our day and really treated those we love (and ourselves too!). The staff at the Merrion, especially Susie Hopkins, were amazing and the service was flawless.

THE ENTERTAINMENT
Kavanagh Ensemble played the strings for our ceremony and champagne reception and Suzanne Carla was our evening entertainment. Suzanne sang accompanied by piano, guitar and double bass, delighting everyone with her jazzy, unique style and fantastic voice. She did an impeccable job on our first dance song!

THE DECOR
As The Merrion is part of such a gorgeous, restored Georgian townhouse with high ceilings, chandeliers, and ornate cornicing, we didn’t want to take too much attention away from the beautiful décor. We chose all-white florals, keeping them greenery-free as we wanted an ethereal, intensely white look.

We had candles glowing from every surface to create a soft atmosphere as the sun went down and a scented candle to burn throughout the rooms on the day (Trudon Atria). Every time I smell the candle it takes me right back to that moment when they opened the doors, and I began walking up the aisle. We hope to always keep one of the candles in our home to burn on anniversaries and special occasions and remind us of our wedding day.

THEIR TOP TIPS

  • Do your research! As a research librarian, I loved this element of wedding planning. The time spent online looking at lots of different suppliers (at various price points) really gave us a good perspective on what we wanted and the quality to expect for our budget.
  • Be careful with your budget. Even when you’re only overspending by a little on each item, it adds up to a huge amount once you combine all the different elements. We tried to choose a few things to splurge on (the dress, the venue, the food and the photographer) and then accepted that some areas would require hard decisions – i.e. we had a very small flower budget (which didn’t matter too much as the venue décor was gorgeous).
  • Check your possible wedding dates for sports matches etc. We were about to choose from a few days in October before Googling the date – only to find out that the Rugby World Cup semi, quarter and finals were on. Lots of our guests are huge rugby fans and we didn’t want to have to compete with the match for guests’ attention, so we chose a date after the World Cup had finished.
  • Trust your suppliers. If you love their work, you have nothing to worry about! As overthinkers, that was a tricky part for us, but they all did a fabulous job and all that research before making our choices paid off.
  • Brides, don’t worry if everything isn’t exactly how you imagined it on your hair and make-up trials. The looks we did on both my hair and make-up trials were not the looks we went for on the wedding day and that is exactly what the trials are for – to tweak and improve. Although I did feel apprehensive not seeing exactly how I would look on my big day in advance, I shouldn’t have worried. Both my hairdresser and make-up artist did an incredible job, and I really did feel my best on the day.

THEY WISH THEY HAD

  • Checked if both of our Instant cameras worked before leaving them out for our guests on the day (one didn’t work so we didn’t end up with many photos).
  • Reminded staff to save us some of our canapes during the reception while we were with our photographer (we didn’t get to try any).
  • Had the budget for a videographer to relive the day as we grow older. We chose a high-quality photographer and foregoing the videography was one of the compromises we made. We have snippets of video from our guests and, of course, the beautiful photos but it would have been lovely to have the video too. Even so, we know we did what we could with our budget.

 

THEIR BEST MOMENTS
Hearing the opening notes of Pachelbel’s Canon with the realisation that finally, after all the dreaming and anticipation, it was really our wedding day. Everything about the ceremony. Nailing our dip and kiss on the first dance. Seeing our guests at their most glamorous, black-tie best. The food and champagne! Suzanne Carla’s final song when all our guests were filling the dancefloor and singing at the top of their lungs. Going to bed that night in The Merrion’s incredible bridal suite feeling like we had had our most perfect wedding day.

THE FIRST DANCE SONG
Because You Loved Me by Celine Dion.

THE CREW
Bride’s Dress: Milla Nova from Verona Bridal. Bride’s Shoes: Manolo Blahnik. Groom’s Suit: Louis Copeland. Flowers: The Garden. Make-up: Natasha Ray. Hair: Danielle Whelan. Venue & Food: The Merrion. Cake: Sweetie Pie.

See more photographs from Victoria & Cormac’s wedding in the gallery below.

Photography by Christina Brosnan.

Want to see your Real Wedding on IMAGE.ie? Email shayna.sappington@image.ie with the subject line ‘Real Wedding’.

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