A NI couple have shared an insight into their special outdoor wedding ceremony at Castle Park in Bangor.
30-year-old Emily Lucas (now Lang), from Bangor and husband David (33), from Glasgow, had their big day on January 27, 2023.
Their reception was afterwards at The Roof Garden at The Merchant Hotel.
Read more: Inside NI couple's big day at the Clandeboye Lodge Hotel with humanist ceremony
In our weekly feature Inside My Wedding, couples are delving into their special day to give bride and grooms-to-be some top tips.
The pair got engaged overlooking the river at Tullymore Forest Park in January 2022.
Emily has told us all on their special day and said they were the first people on record to be married in Castle Park.
Tell us all about your wedding day!
We got married at 4pm on 27.01.2023 in Castle Park in a fairy light, paper lanterns and candle-lit clearing with 43 guests. We had a harpist and offered our guests tea, coffee, mulled wine and blankets on arrival. I made a floral arch to get married underneath and we had a humanist celebrant perform a handfasting ritual involving our 2-year-old.
We had family and friends do readings including my mother-in-law doing a Saining ritual (traditional Scottish practice to welcome new beginnings). We had dried flower petals as confetti and bubbles for the children. After our ceremony we had taxis take us to our venue, The Roof Garden at The Merchant.
We had a relaxed meal - a finger food buffet served to the tables with wine and salads. We opted for a desserts table with treats from French Village and Batch Coffee. Cake was served with prosecco for speeches and then our first dance (Led Zeppelin - Tangerine) took place outside on the balcony where my sisters surprised us with sparklers! We danced until 00:30 and then carried on the night in Ollie's nightclub until it closed at 3am!
We would love people to see the beauty in our surroundings and know that there are so many beautiful places to have a ceremony. Castle Park will always be special to us now and we can visit whenever we like. We would also like to highlight that we had a clean up crew to help remove all the lights, décor and rubbish from the site. We are fully in support of 'leave no trace' when we are guests in nature.
How did you begin planning?
One of the first things we decided on was to have a humanist ceremony outside. We originally planned to have our wedding in the Walled Garden in March, however my sister called me to tell me she was pregnant and her due date was our planned wedding date.
We wanted to make sure there was no stress or concern around the wedding and baby so we pushed the wedding forward to January, but the Walled Garden would be bare.
We went for a walk around the park to chat about an alternative venue and came across our clearing and thought, 'Why not get married here!?'
How did you decide on your venue?
We love the outdoors and enjoy stargazing. We decided to get married later in the day to make it easier on our little boy, so he could nap before the ceremony. It also meant our ceremony was finishing just as the sun was going down.
We saw multiple venues but when we saw The Merchant Roof Garden, it seemed perfect and very in keeping with our love of the outdoors. The food choices and relaxed atmosphere were exactly what we were looking for.
Tell us all about your wedding dress, bridesmaid dresses and suits.
My wedding dress was a gamble. I had tried on a few and wasn't overly impressed by them. I saw a picture of mine online and fell in love. We ordered it in the hopes it would be ok. It arrived in a dirty parcel bag and I feared the worst, however I pulled out the most beautiful, well-made dress that fitted like a glove.
When I knew I was wearing blue, I decided immediately to have my bridesmaids in white but had to find one in a maternity fit. I found the gorgeous boho-style dresses online with a very similar lace overlay to my dress - and again we all fell in love.
Shopping for suits was very easy, my mum and I took my now husband to Next and we all adored the first suit he tried on. I also found the ties here that again had a very similar floral print that matched my dress.
What was the best part in the build up to your day?
We only started planning the wedding in June so it was all quite quick. We did a lot of DIY, including making our own wedding favours, making the floral headpieces for me and my bridesmaids, and a floral hoop that was hung in the Roof Garden above our tables.
We really enjoyed doing the crafty bits! My parents hosted a dinner the night before for people who had travelled and we really enjoyed that.
We were also both very nervous about standing up in front of people, so it really helped to see people beforehand. We were actually so nervous that we wrote our vows together and opted to say them in unison so we didn't have to speak alone.
I got such stage fright on the walk through the park to the clearing that I began to cry.
What was the best moment of your day and your other favourite parts?
We absolutely loved the entire day! Everything went as planned, the morning was so relaxed and it was fantastic to see all our family and friends who had travelled over from Scotland and England. We enjoyed how personal our ceremony was and how we had catered it to each other.
The Merchant were fantastic and we loved our sparkler surprise! I really enjoyed spending the morning with my mum and sisters, having a nice relaxing bath with prosecco, and getting my hair and makeup done.
What would you tell other bride and grooms to plan first & what are your top tips?
We think starting with your ceremony is the best, plan out how you want it and where you want it. That is the most important part for the couple. We kept saying to each other, "the ceremony is for us, the reception is to thank our guests".
We tried to not get stressed over little things. Once the ceremony was sorted, the venue was booked and we had something to wear, we thought if anything else doesn't work out, it doesn't matter!
One top tip would be to shop local, I got our flowers from a local florist that my dad uses. The flowers were stunning and I couldn't have asked for better.
What were the hardest parts to plan?
The biggest issue we had was a wet weather plan! We had originally planned to go to The Merchant for everything if the weather was poor, however when I went to collect our wedding schedule we were told this wasn't possible due to it being in a different district.
It was only 10 days before the wedding [and] caused a momentary panic, but it was unnecessary in the end as it turned out we had the best day in January!
We got quite ill before the ceremony too, two weeks before the wedding I got tonsillitis and was too poorly to do much. Then David and Jacob got a vomiting bug the week before the wedding. By the end of the week they were feeling better just as I was struck down. This was a bigger issue considering I was making our wedding cake. I luckily made a quick recovery.
We also had a family bereavement in July, my grandmother died quite suddenly. She was missed so much during the planning and of course on the day. We harvested the lavender from her garden and dried it all over the house for months. We used it in our wedding favours, our table settings, our invitations, our bouquets, headpieces and décor. We wanted her presence to be felt throughout the day.
Tell us about your theme.
We didn't really set out to have a theme, but we kept everything tied into the park ceremony. We had lots of comments about how ethereal it felt which was lovely. We wanted a chilled day that was family oriented.
We had various interruptions during the ceremony and speeches by the children dancing about, laughing and shouting. It made the day all the more perfect.
Would you do anything different or wish there was anything you didn't worry about?
We wouldn't do anything differently, we had the best day and even got a lie in the next day!
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Do you want to tell us all about your wedding day? Email be@belfastlive.co.uk for your chance to be featured.
