Wedding of the Week: Cork couple were 'destined to be intertwined'

A SURPRISE proposal in front of hundreds of people at the Rockefeller Centre ice rink in New York, led to the recent marriage of this couple.

Ciara Wilson O’Mahony, from Grange, and Aidan O’Mahony, of Lisavaird, Clonakilty, live in Belgooly. The couple feature in our Wedding of the Week.

Ciara’s dad’s family are from Rosscarbery so she spent most summers there - so their paths probably crossed many times.

When they were organising their day, they met with Fr McCarty. Inside a huge record ledger with more than 100 years of baptisms - they found both their records, just pages apart.

“We had been baptised in the same church just months apart. Our relationship was carved out before we were born, two souls that were destined to be intertwined,” said Ciara.

They were together nearly 15 years when Aidan surprised her in December, 2021, with a trip to New York. The couple love Christmas and New Year, so decided to plan their wedding for New Year’s Eve, 2022.

They married in Aidan’s local church, in Lisavarid, and had their celebrations in The Celtic Ross Hotel.

The bride got her dress in Lilac Rose in Limerick and wore a hooded cloak during the day. Her friend Sinead and her team from Turning Heads in Douglas, took care of the hair. Rebecca from Rebecca’s Salon, Rosscarbery, did make-up.

Ciara’s two brothers, Derek and Brendan, drove the wedding party in vintage cars. Her dad’s pride and joy is a family heirloom, a 1909 Minerva that his dad passed onto him, and it didn’t fail to get the bride to the church on time, even though it can be temperamental at times.

They opted for a Kings Table at the meal, it seated 30 - so every single one of their close family sat with them. The cake was made by Helen from HM Cakes.

The theme of the day was fun, fun, fun - with lots of surprises throughout. These included a secret vow. Ciara explains: “At the end of my vows, I asked Aidan to vow to protect me from spiders for the rest of my life! He said yes!

“Also, when we were making our entrance into the room for our meal, we had a saxophone player perform Flor East Sax, we got to the dance floor and danced, the next song a classic, Manic 2000, we got everyone up on the dance floor to boogie. I was even asked if we had to have dinner now because the atmosphere in the room was electric.”

Another fun surprise involved the singing chef between courses.

The band were The Harleys and the couple’s first dance was to Savage Garden’s Truly Madly Deeply.