Seán (Seánie), managing director of Elive, and Ciara, an estate agent, are both from Limerick and met nine years ago in Clohessy’s, the local pub in Ballycummin. Five years after that, they started going out.
“Our unofficial first date was an evening at a friend’s house after which he walked me home and that’s when we knew we were smitten,” says Ciara.
On the morning of June 1st, 2014, Seánie told Ciara they had to take a soil sample from the site in Castleconnell where they were building a house.
“Seánie had a shopping bag in which he said was a shovel and a tub for the soil. We arrived and he placed his iPad on the ground saying he wanted to document the start of our home from green-field site stage,” she says.
“Everything in life needs a good foundation,” Seánie said, “and on that note...”
He then took a ring box from the bag and proposed to Ciara, capturing it all on video. The other contents of the plastic bag included a bottle of champagne and two glasses.
On September 4th, 2015, surrounded by 170 guests, Seánie and Ciara were married in an outdoor ceremony at Coolbawn Quay in north Tipperary. Ciara was accompanied up the aisle by her father Bernard.
Seánie’s uncle Jerry Flannery drove the wedding car, a vintage Volkswagen Beetle. The bride wore a dress from Lilac Rose in Limerick city and a fresh flower headpiece from Lawless Flowers.
Her mother Frances made the floral headpieces for the flower girls and restored her own mother’s high nelly bicycle – on which she carried her to school as child – that was on display at the venue.
Ciara and Seánie credit their friend, wedding planner Sharon McMeel, “with the overall planning of our day. We couldn’t have had such a perfect day without her.”
A highlight for them was a surprise poem written and read by their friend Doc.
The Jackie Chan Allstars played after dinner and the couple's first dance as newlyweds was to The Cure's Love Song. DJ Dara Fahy from Limerick 95fm then played.
For their honeymoon, the couple spent two weeks travelling in the south of France.
Photo: Paul Morrissey, paulmorrissey.ie
