The discussion on whether or not Posh 'n' Becks have really plumped for an Irish wedding or whether it's just a cunning plan is beginning to get a bit tiresome, so it was good to get news of an infinitely more hip wedding on the cards this week. Top New York-based interior designer, Laura Farrell (known to friends from her Dublin daze as Connie) is going to get hitched to her dishy Norwegian painter boyfriend, Espin Eiborg on Tuesday. The pair met in New York, where Laura has been working for some years with Clodagh Design - Clodagh, is of course, the Irish-born interior designer well-known in the Big Apple for her take on minimalism and her rather 1980s refusal to reveal her second name. During her time with Clodagh, Laura was responsible for creating homes for the likes of Chris Lithty, founder of top record label Def Jam Records, and actor Robert Redford. Indeed when Redford came to Ireland to work with his biographer last year, it was Farrell who pointed him in the direction of Mary Bowe and Marlfield House in Wexford.
Laura popped home herself last year to do some work on the Sorrento Terrace home of Colm Barrington. Laura and Espin plan moving back to Ireland to set up in business in August. For now, though, all the plans are for the wedding, which will take place in Manhattan's City Hall and on the roof of the Gramercy Park Hotel. Laura's parents, the Dublin coroner, Dr Brian Farrell and Mary Farrell, will be there along with most of the young Irish Manhattan brigade including Trevor White who is with Kevin Kelly's New York-based Cadogan Publications; Cedric Devitt, rising star at Grey Advertising, and hotshot media planner Rory O'Flaherty, who will be moonlighting as the DJ for the night.