Planning a Wedding in Ireland: Where Do You Even Start?
Photo courtesy of https://www.instagram.com/whitecoastalphotography/ Real Irish Wedding at Kilkea Castle Hair by https://www.instagram.com/lisabehanhairstylist/ & Makeup by me https://www.instagram.com/lauradevidesmakeup/
You are engaged, you are excited, and probably about five minutes later someone asks, “So, have you picked a date?”Then come the questions about the venue, the dress, the guest list, the flowers, the photographer, the band and how much all of this is going to cost.
It is very easy for something incredibly exciting to suddenly feel overwhelming.
I have worked in weddings for almost 16 years, and I have also planned two of my own. I married an Irish man from Kerry, I am Brazilian, and between our families, different countries and everything we wanted from the celebrations, there were quite a few moving parts.
If there is one thing weddings have taught me, both professionally and personally, it is this: you do not need to figure everything out at once. You just need to make the first few decisions in the right order.
Start with when you want to get married
The first question, for me, is when.
You do not need an exact date yet, but you do need a general idea. Do you imagine getting married in summer or winter? This year, next year or two years from now? Do you have your heart set on a Saturday, or would you consider a Friday or weekday?
The time of year affects much more than the weather. It can affect venue availability, pricing, daylight, photographs and the whole atmosphere of the wedding.
A summer Saturday can also come with very different costs and minimum numbers compared with a weekday or an off season date.
So no, you do not need to immediately decide on 14 June. But knowing that you would love a summer wedding next year already gives you somewhere to start.
Before the spreadsheet, talk about the dream
Before getting too caught up in numbers, I think you should sit down together and ask a much more important question:
What would actually make us happy?
Do you dream of getting married in a castle? A country house? A beautiful hotel? Somewhere by the sea? Do you want a small wedding where everyone knows each other or a huge party? Something formal and elegant or relaxed and colourful? Ireland or a destination wedding?
You do not have to answer all of this in one evening. I actually think it is good to let the idea mature.
Pinterest was really useful for us. I would save things, show them to my husband and ask whether he liked them. Slowly, you start noticing patterns and discovering what actually feels like you, rather than just copying a wedding you saw online.
Detail shot of my wedding cake
This was something I dwelled for ages if I was gonna have cake or not, and in the end I did and I do not regret!
Make a rough guest list early
You do not need a final guest list at this stage, but you do need an approximate number.
Planning for 40 people and planning for 180 people are two completely different projects. Your guest number affects your venue options, your budget and even the atmosphere you are trying to create.
Some venues also have minimum guest numbers depending on the season and day of the week, so this is something worth knowing before you fall in love with somewhere that does not suit your wedding.
For us, family logistics had a huge influence on what was possible. I am Brazilian, my husband is Irish and from Kerry, and at one point we even considered getting married in Italy so that everyone would have to travel.
We flew over and visited a venue we had loved online. The price worked, but once we got there, we realised it simply was not going to work. It was too remote, it did not feel how we had imagined and getting everyone there would have been difficult.
That trip taught me something I have seen again and again in weddings: About 90% of wedding planning is logistics. People need to be able to get there. They need somewhere to stay. Suppliers need access. You need to move from one part of the day to another without creating unnecessary stress.
Once you start looking at a wedding through that lens, a lot of decisions become easier.
Then start understanding your real budget
I think it is helpful to have an idea of how much you would like to spend, but it is difficult to create a truly realistic budget before you have actually asked what things cost.
Weddings in Ireland are not as cheap as other places in Europe but way cheaper than getting maried in America.
So start with a number you feel comfortable with, then begin asking venues and suppliers for prices. That is when your real budget starts taking shape.
There are also plenty of ways to optimise it. The day of the week, season and number of guests can make a huge difference.
Then ask yourselves the most important budget question:
What actually matters to us?
For me, flowers mattered. Paper details mattered. The way everything looked mattered. I am creative and knew how to make some things myself, so DIY helped us save money that could then go somewhere else.
For another couple, the priority might be photography, food, an incredible band, an open bar or two full days of celebration. There is no universal answer. Spend according to what the two of you will genuinely care about. It will be worth it! I promise you that.
Real wedding at Killrudery https://killruddery.com/pages/weddings
Killrudery - One of my top 5 venues in Ireland (photo by me)
Be careful where you compromise
For one of our weddings, there was a photographer we really wanted. Their prices started at around €6,000 and our budget already felt very stretched, so we chose someone considerably less expensive instead.
I wish I had gone a different direction. A year later, I can still look at some of those photographs and know that they are simply not what I wanted. That does not mean you should always choose the most expensive supplier. It means you should identify the things you will still care about after the wedding is over.
There are lots of areas where compromising is absolutely fine. Just be careful about compromising on the things that really matter to you.
Now start looking seriously at venues
Once you know roughly when you want to get married, what kind of wedding you are imagining, approximately how many people you are inviting and what sort of budget you are working with, venue searching becomes much easier.
Do not spend months researching before contacting places. Most venues will need an approximate month and year before they can tell you what is actually available.
Ask what they offer and then see whether it works for you. Every venue does things differently.
When you are narrowing down your options, start looking at the practical side too. Where will guests stay? Is there parking? Will they need transport? What happens if it rains? Is there an indoor ceremony option? Is there accommodation onsite?
In Ireland, I think the rain plan matters a lot. If your dream is an outdoor ceremony, wonderful, butyou should also genuinely like the indoor option.
For one of our weddings at Sheen Falls Lodge in Kenmare, we had our ceremony in the Boathouse. It was covered, but still had an incredible view, so I did not spend the week before the wedding obsessing over whether it was going to rain.
That gave me a lot of peace of mind. (Clodagh is their wedding planner and she's absolutely incredible to deal with)
This is the view from The Boathouse in The Sheen falls - Honestly the photo doesnt do justice. You see the Kerry mountains & the sea
Your first wedding planning checklist
If everything still feels like a lot, this is all I would focus on at the beginning:
1. Decide roughly when you want to get married
Season, year and whether the day of the week matters to you.2. Talk about the kind of wedding you actually want
Castle, hotel, country house, destination, small, large, formal or relaxed.3. Make a rough guest list
You do not need exact numbers yet.4. Set an initial budget range
Then start collecting real prices before treating that number as fixed.5. Contact venues
Ask about availability, pricing, minimum numbers and what is included.6. Once your venue and date are confirmed, contact your priority suppliers
Especially anyone you already know you really want.That is enough to get the whole process moving.
If you can, stay where you are getting married
Initially, we decided not to stay at our wedding hotel because we thought it was an easy place to save money. Closer to the wedding, we realised that staying there would make everything logistically much easier, so we changed the plan.
It ended up being one of the best decisions we made.
Getting ready was easier, the room was beautiful, the photographs were lovely and I could see our guests arriving. I did not need to think about travelling anywhere on the morning.
If your venue has accommodation and it works within your budget, I would seriously consider it.
You do not need to organise every guest’s journey for them, but you do need to make things reasonably easy. If attending your wedding becomes extremely complicated, some people simply will not come.
A little bit of our Brazilian wedding decor. I wanted tropical vibes but in whites and greens.
Once the venue is booked, secure the people you really want
After the date and venue are confirmed, contact the suppliers who are a priority for you.
If you have followed a photographer for years, email them. If there is a particular hairstylist or makeup artist you want, ask for availability. Great photographers can be booked very far in advance, and good bridal hairstylists can be surprisingly difficult to find for popular dates.
For my own bridal makeup bookings, around 12 to 18 months ahead is very normal. That said, I also love a last minute wedding and have booked brides only a few weeks before their day when I happened to be available.
So if you are planning quickly, do not assume it is too late - I love a last minute wedding.
After your priorities are secured, start working through the rest, like band, celebrant, flowers, videographer and anything else that matters to your wedding.
If you know you want a wedding planner, though, bring them in earlier because they can help guide a lot of these decisions.
Choose suppliers you actually trust
Instagram is often where the relationship begins. You see someone’s work and think, “I love this.”
Then look deeper.
Check their website. Read their Google reviews. See whether their process and pricing are clear. Contact them and pay attention to how the communication feels.
For some suppliers, personality matters more than couples realise at the beginning. Your hair and makeup team will be around you during a very personal part of the day. Your photographer might be with you for ten hours.
With my own brides, we always have a call after they book because I really believe it is important that we get to know each other.
We are going to share a wedding morning. The vibe should feel right.
Me and my husband at the Sheen Falls - Kenmare (we did our own flower boxes and I used them as a seating plan as well)
Make the wedding a project for both of you
Do not try to do everything yourself. Involve your partner properly. Give them things to do. Ask what they think. Make decisions together.
Planning a wedding can become this amazing first big project that you build as a couple.
That does not mean you will agree on everything. You probably will not. But there is something incredibly special about standing at your wedding afterwards and knowing that the two of you built it together.
I have also seen the opposite, where the bride has done everything and the groom arrives almost like a guest and barely knows what time he needs to be ready.
Make the wedding belong to both of you.
And be careful not to let family members take over the important decisions either. Every family has a different dynamic, and of course there may be needs you want to accommodate. But this is your wedding.
It should still feel like you.
A few things that are particularly Irish about planning a wedding here
The weather is the obvious one, but daylight matters too.
If you are getting married in the darker months, ceremony timing can affect how much natural light you have for photographs.
Drinks can have a significant impact on your budget as well. Irish weddings do not follow the unlimited open bar model that some international couples expect, and alcohol can become a considerable expense.
On the other hand, Ireland gives you extraordinary options. Castles, country houses, beautiful hotels, gardens, woodland settings and incredible landscapes.
And I love the Irish tradition of a Day Two. Everyone meets again the next day, often at a pub, has food and drinks, sometimes music, and basically debriefs the entire night before.
It is such a fun way of stretching the wedding without trying to make the main day do everything.
Do not worry about your exact wedding morning yet
One thing you really do not need to solve at the beginning is the exact hair and makeup timetable.
That comes much later.
I normally like hair and makeup to be completely finished around one hour before the first look, ceremony or departure time, and I usually allow approximately one hour per person. The bride is never the first or the last person I do.
If you have hired experienced professionals, they will work all of this out with you. The only thing worth remembering when choosing your ceremony time is simple:
The earlier the ceremony and the more people getting ready, the earlier the morning needs to begin.
So if starting hair and makeup at 5am sounds like your worst nightmare, think twice before booking a very early ceremony with a large bridal party.
Try to finish everything before the wedding week
You will not completely succeed.
There will always be one last thing.
But aim to have everything important finished about a week before the wedding.
The last thing you want is to arrive at the day still chasing suppliers or making decisions that could have been sorted earlier. You deserve to enjoy that final week. See your family, eat properly, sleep and let yourself get excited.
Then, on the day, trust the people you hired.
You chose them because you liked what they do. Let them do it.
You do not need to see the end of the road from the beginning
This is probably the thing I would most like to tell someone who has just started planning.
You cannot see the finished wedding yet, and you are not supposed to.
At the beginning, you are trying to imagine an event that does not exist while simultaneously understanding venues, prices, suppliers, guests and logistics.
A friend who had already been married said something to me while I was planning mine that stayed with me.
She said thata wedding is a source of prosperity.
I know that might sound a little abstract when you have just opened a venue brochure and are wondering how everything is going to come together, but somehow things start finding their place.
You make one decision, then another. You adjust the budget. You discover what actually matters to you. You let go of something you thought you needed. You find the right people.
You do not need to see the whole path from where you are now.
Dream first, then start bringing that dream into reality one decision at a time.
After almost 16 years of watching weddings, I can tell you that the thing that makes a wedding genuinely good is not how expensive it was, how many flowers there were or how beautiful the venue looked.
It is when the bride and groom are actually having fun.
When they are relaxed, present and genuinely enjoying their own wedding, everybody feels it.
That is what people remember.
And really, that is what all the planning is for.
Photo courtesy of https://www.instagram.com/whitecoastalphotography/ Real Irish Wedding at Kilkea Castle Hair by https://www.instagram.com/lisabehanhairstylist/ & Makeup by me https://www.instagram.com/lauradevidesmakeup/
About Laura
Laura Devides is a professional makeup artist with almost 16 years of experience working across weddings in Ireland and abroad. She specialises in natural, elegant makeup and has worked with brides of different ages, skin tones and wedding styles. After planning her own weddings in Ireland and Brazil, she also knows first hand how much happens behind the scenes before the wedding day ever begins.