How I met my partner: Wedding on the cards for couple who made ‘unbreakable vow’

RITA Casey and Brian Buckeridge first met through work 10 years ago, with Rita saying, “the first time we met, we didn’t actually see each other – we were both working in Amazon testing a new product before it went live and he was one of the testers”.

Rita explained that Brian was working in the Edinburgh branch at the time so spoke only over the phone, but then he returned to Cork.

“As soon as I saw him, I was like ‘he’s totally my type’, and I made it my mission to get to know him!”

Brian admitted: “It took me some time to realise that she was interested, I had some other stuff going on and didn’t know if I was in the headspace for a relationship, but luckily Rita persisted.”

“We both love movies, so we’d go to a lot of films together, we’d have our lunch together at work, there was one lady in the cafeteria who was dying to see us together,” Rita said, with Brian adding “we were also constantly DMing on the work chat.”

“We’d be absolutely skitting ourselves laughing, and the people sitting in between us would be like what’s up with them?”

After a year, they moved in together to a rented home for two years, and “after that we were lucky enough to find a place we could buy that wasn’t extortionate,” Rita said.

Rita proposed to Brian in Edinburgh.

“In typical millennial fashion, we’re both big Harry Potter fans, and we love Edinburgh so I brought over one of the hardback Harry Potter books.

“There’s a chapter called the unbreakable vow, and when you open the book I had cut all the pages to frame that chapter and I had the proposal note in there – thankfully he said yes, and we still have that book front and centre on our bookshelves.”

That was nearly five years ago, “but with covid and baby, we decided the wedding can wait,” Rita said, explaining that they are planning an October wedding but haven’t decided if it will be 2025 or 2026.

The couple had a daughter in November 2020, Poppy.

“She came along at the height of covid. We found out I was pregnant two weeks before lockdown,” Rita said, explaining that restrictions meant Brian could only come to one scan with her.

“I had an early scan because of some spotting that he couldn’t come to, and I was so terrified I was going to be told bad news, thankfully it wasn’t the case.”

Brian said: “Even the labour, she was in hospital for days and I was only allowed in for the last hour or two, then I had to leave and not see them for two more days.”

Rita had gestational diabetes, so Poppy needed extra blood sugar tests before she could be discharged, and Brian had only gotten to hold his daughter for 20 minutes before spending two days away from them.

They both left Amazon in summer 2019, with Rita starting a level 6 childcare qualification and Brian doing a masters in cybersecurity at UCC.

Brian started his job the January after Poppy was born,.

“I got to be at home first two months of her life instead of two weeks,” he said.

“I work from home, and that suits me down to the ground, being able to pop out if Rita needs anything or just to have lunch together is great.”

Rita added: “Today when I was dropping her off at preschool, she told me she wants dad to collect her, and he can do that on his lunch break.”

Rita launched Poppy Rose Prints in the summer of 2021, starting off with greeting cards and stationery and quickly getting orders for business cards and logo stickers, which she has recently had to pull back on due to the success of her greetings cards.

Her aim is to be in a few stores, and her cards have just featured in the Meraki Pop-Up, and will be in Peach Vintage in Midleton from this week. She has also started organising craft markets in Glanmire church hall, with the next one on May 12.