Amy & Gary’s Modern Romance at Leighinmohr House Hotel

Real Irish Weddings

Amy & Gary brought their dream to reality on their wedding day and even included their two furry friends!

You have to check out this real-life wedding where Amy and Gary pulled out all the stops to achieve their dream day together at Leighinmohr House Hotel.

Keep reading to find out more on their wedding day celebrations.

How did you both first meet?

We first met on Plenty of Fish in 2017, our first date was for a drive to Starbucks in Connswater, on date four, I met Gary’s friend who he lived with at the time and we spent our first few months dating, travelling from Lisburn to Portadown where he lived. At first, I thought Gary had a real country accent and he thought I sounded like I had a really strong Belfast accent, little did he know that six years later we would be married.

Seven short months later we rented our first little flat together in Lisburn, it suited us there as Gary already worked in Lisburn. three years later after a good few holidays and trips to the Galgorm, we bought our first home, again in Lisburn which we live in now with our two little dogs, which we treat like our babies.

Tell us about the proposal!

For my 30th Birthday in January 2022, Gary booked us to go to an all-inclusive Spa resort in Corfu, for June 2022. Five days into the holiday we had planned to go on a sunset dinner. Before we left for dinner, Gary asked me did I want a photo on our Swim balcony overlooking the sea, so there on bended knee, he popped the question in front of the beautiful Aegean sunset & of course I said yes!

When did you start planning your wedding?

As soon as we got home from Corfu, the planning started very quickly. We were just too excited not to! Our engagement party was in July 2022, followed by our away hen to Kavos/stag to Benidorm in June 2023, and then our home ones in Belfast in late August 2023. We planned everything ourselves.

Firstly, we went to see a few venues and one of the ones we liked the look off didn’t have any available dates until 2025. One Sunday, we were out shopping and got an email to say this specific venue had a cancellation for September 2023 and if we liked, we could go and see it, although the sales coordinator was going on holiday for three weeks the next day, so we decided to take the leap and go that day to Ballymena to view it. As soon as we were shown about it, we both automatically knew it was for us. That was it, we confirmed our booking for Leighinmohr House Hotel for 22nd September 2023!

Tell us more about your suppliers!

Well what can I say, I don’t think we had one single fault with any of our suppliers. Doing it all within a year and a half we needed to stay within budget of what we could afford. All our suppliers worked within this.

I recommend Leighinmohr House 100%. Leighinmohr House has beautiful Grounds for photos, staff that would go to the end of the earth for you & beautiful food. We picked the Perfect Day package & it catered for everything we wanted and more. Special thanks to Patricia Crawford from Leighinmohr House our wedding coordinator who helped us from start to finish in creating our wedding.

Our flowers were from Let’s Face It Creations. This company is very reasonably priced. Our flowers were foam and you wouldn’t know any different to real flowers. They were perfect. Great communication too.
Our reception music was from Rachel Frew and she had the voice of an angel. Very reasonable & everyone commented on how good she was.

My makeup was done by Hannah Jaynes Cabin. I did one trial with Hannah beforehand and she made us all feel beautiful on the day. My makeup even stayed on during the happy tears.

We had a dog chaperone from Petticoat Tails Ireland. Jo kept our two dogs the night before and on the night of the wedding, she brought our two babies to the venue for photographs too. This was important to us that they got to share our day. Our two girls came back home knackered from having so much fun.

Who captured your day?

Angel Photography/Videography

This was one of the first vendors we booked. Specifically because a lot of people that had previously used them said they book up quickly. We loved their photos and how they made every wedding look different from others. We emailed back and forth and then eventually we got them booked. On our big day, Andrea & Harry came to the girls and Simon & Donna went to the boys.

I felt like Andrea had done everything for me, never mind taking photos. I never felt like we were being watched by the cameras, from holding up my dress, calming me down, and handing me a drink, this lady is like a Wonder woman. Our photos are amazing, so many upstaged photos and they just capture our reality. Our film is probably one of the most amazing things I’ve watched! Simon captured every single small detail of our day and then home-delivered it to us. I’ve personally watched the full-hour film three times and cried every time. Happy tears of course!

What did you and the wedding party wear?

My dress well where do I start? My dress was an Ivory Justin Alexander & initially not what I thought I was going to go for. My mum, my bridesmaid and my nanny were the first to see me in it. They all had tears in their eyes. So did I!

My dress was so elegant, even though it was clipped in to fit me and show me what it looked like. I think it helped as Neil from Orchid Bridal pinned my hair up and everything to make me get the feel of what it may look like. I then decided I wanted buttons up it & my seamstress Mia was able to custom make these and sew them on, she also had to take my dress in two sizes smaller, so a lot of work but it was perfect. My veil was long but very plain to show the embellished beads on my dress. I had dangly earrings and a tiara. Again from Orchid Bridal.

My shoes were from Lace and Favour online. I loved these. That night I was straight into my Converse for comfort. These became part of my photos!

All suits were Navy Carvanni suits. Gary’s was the same as the best man, groomsman and usher except for his tie. The bridal party also had plain navy ties to go with their suits and Gary had a design on his navy tie.

My best man had a navy suit with a purple waistcoat and tie to match the bridesmaids. All from Street Life in Newtownards. All alterations were done here too.
Our bridesmaids were all in Purple Laila dresses from Wed2B. I couldn’t fault them.

What was your favourite part of the day?

I couldn’t pinpoint one thing in the day that was my favourite, I have a few. I loved getting ready with the girls in the morning, loved seeing Gary waiting at the top of the aisle and calming my nerves instantly & sitting for dinner thinking that we were married. It’s all very surreal.

Gary’s favourite parts of the day were seeing me come up the aisle & the fact that his speech was finally over, which he had been stressing about since the day he asked me to marry him. (Ha)

Any advice you can give?

My advice for anyone planning their wedding is to make sure to join the wedding help site on Facebook, we all have no idea what we are doing, until it’s over. It will all come together in the end. Take a deep breath and take it all in because your day is over in a flash.