Mary & Joe travelled all the way from Minnesota in the U.S.A to get married in Northern Ireland on the 10th of November. The ceremony took place at St. Patrick’s in Armagh and the wedding reception was at the Tullyglass Hotel in Ballymena.
Mary has strong family connections to Northern Ireland with her Mum being originally from Armagh. We met up with Mary on the morning of the wedding at her uncle’s farm, the same farm her Mum had left from when she got married herself. Everything on the morning of the wedding went as planned and was on time, which was impressive considering Mary & Joe arranged everything for their wedding online from the U.S.A along with a little help from Mary’s extended family in Armagh. While the wedding took place here, this was still very much an American wedding. Mary had explained to us on the lead up to the wedding that her & Joe wanted to include a “first look” which has become a popular wedding tradition in the states.
A “first look” is when a bride and groom see each other for the first time on the morning of the wedding before the ceremony and break with the old tradition of the groom not seeing his bride until she walks down the aisle. Having photographed Mary & Joe’s “first look” we have to admit we would love to see this part of the wedding day become more popular here too. It really was a beautiful moment and set up the rest of the day perfectly. If you are reading this and you are currently planning your own wedding there are a lot of advantages to having a “first look” which we will cover in another blog post later on.
After the “first look” we made our way to St. Patricks for the ceremony. The chapel itself is quite small and tight for space, so while we were not able to move around as much as we would normally do, it made for a beautifully intimate ceremony for Mary & Joe’s wedding. We loved how at the start of the ceremony Joe walked down the aisle with his mum followed by the bridesmaids and groomsmen in pairs before Mary and her Dad did the tradional walk down the aisle themselves, another American tradition.
After the ceremony we all headed off to the Tullyglass Hotel for the wedding reception. We have photographed a few weddings here and always find the staff to be friendly and well organised. Once we reached the hotel, we got to spend a little bit of time with Mary & Joe before photographing the bridal party and grabbing a few family photos. Everyone was really good fun and it felt like in no time at all it was time to go back inside for dinner.
After dinner we photographed the speeches and after a little break while the staff at the hotel made all the changes to the room for the rest of the evening, Mary & Joe’s first dance. We have photographed a lot of awesome weddings this year and we don’t know if it was in part due to the inclusion of the American wedding traditions or just because Mary, Joe, their family and friends where just such good fun to spend the day with but this wedding is right up there as one of our absolute favourites.
If you are reading this because you are trying to find a photographer for a wedding at the Tullyglass Hotel, you might also like to check out this other amazing wedding we photographed there as well. Tullyglass House Hotel Wedding
