Tell us a little about how you met
We met through a mutual friend, I was living in Belfast and John was at University in Liverpool. John happened to be home and came along to a party that our mutual friend had arranged. We bonded over stories about our mutual friend (and future bridesmaid) and our love of all things Mr Kipling. John added me on Facebook (which he hates doing!) and off he went back to University. The next time I spoke to John was a month later when he got my number and sent me a message to say Happy Birthday. It was maybe another six months before we saw each other again, but from then on we have been inseparable.
John and I love celebrating holidays and birthdays so for my birthday when John booked us into a fancy hotel in Dublin along with Ed Sheeran concert tickets, I didn’t think anything was strange – in fact, I couldn’t wait. On the Friday we were driving down to Dublin, I was getting ready for work and John asked what time I would be leaving at – this sounds like a normal enough question but we had been living together for months and I leave the same time each day, so I became a little suspicious…at least of the fact that John had sneakily taken the day off work. Regardless, John got ready and left at his usual time for work – little did I know he was actually going to the Gym and then to pick up my beautiful ring from Lunn’s and just keeping up pretenses. When I arrived at work I sent him an email to his work account, and a few minutes later when he text I asked him had he got my email (of course he hadn’t!). So he rang a friend in his office, asked them to turn his computer on and email me back. They worded the email exactly as John would, so any suspicion I had was totally wiped away! That afternoon we made the trip to Dublin, checked in to the hotel and I was blown away by the room John had booked. The wallpaper was a detailed picture of the sky at night with a star chart and the views were fantastic. We had dinner booked in the hotel and so we got ready and went down. We shared a bottle of Wine and had a lovely dinner – John ate every bite so I don’t think there were too many nerves! After dinner, John told me there was one last gift for my birthday and so we headed back to our room. When I went in, there were candles burning, rose petals sprinkled across the room and a book sitting on what I had said was my favourite spot in the room. A cosy snug right under a skylight in the room. I sat down and John told me to start looking through the book – he had filled each page with pictures and memories of our 4 years together, all of our trips, our friends, family and our first home that we had just bought. As I neared the end of the book, I looked up, John got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.
Ceremony
St John's Chapel, Coleraine
Reception
Renaissance Suite, Galgorm Resort & Spa
Why Galgorm Resort & Spa
When we started looking for Wedding Venues, we had a few things we thought were vitally important. One was availability of accommodation, two was reputation, three was the ability to make it our own and four was the colour of the carpet (I hated walking in to what would be a beautiful venue only to find it has old red or blue carpet – silly I know but once I noticed it, it was all I would see!) Despite living close to the Galgorm, I had never been and so we booked an appointment to get shown around. I expected to like it, but I never thought I would love it as much as I did.
Tell us the most memorable part of your day
Apart from actually marrying John, my favourite part of the day was the speeches. It was so lovely to sit back, watch the people important to me enjoy a lovely day, take in our surroundings and feeling proud of all those who got up and spoke, despite their nerves!
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