{"id":597612,"date":"2026-07-21T23:35:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T23:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/597612\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T23:35:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T23:35:16","slug":"my-wedding-day-with-teresa-mannion-it-was-lashing-but-i-wasnt-stressed-at-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/597612\/","title":{"rendered":"My Wedding Day with Teresa Mannion: It was lashing \u2014 but I wasn’t stressed at all"},"content":{"rendered":"

We got married on May 10, 1997. We\u2019ll be celebrating a big anniversary next year. We got married in Finnstown Country House Hotel in West County Dublin.<\/p>\n

We had the wedding ceremony in the little chapel of the St Mary\u2019s Holy Faith Convent in Glasnevin, which is where I went to school. It\u2019s across the road from the Met Office and it adjoins the grounds of the Botanic Gardens.<\/p>\n

It was so special to get permission from the sisters to get married in the little chapel, which is just beautiful. The only thing the nuns were a little concerned about were the stiletto heels damaging the floor of the chapel; the floor was polished to within an inch of its life!<\/p>\n

We had about 120 at the wedding, and about 20 of those were children. I organised everything myself; there wasn\u2019t really wedding planners around in those days. For the flowers, I really wanted sunflowers, but, at that time of the year, they had to be imported, so that was my one little luxury.<\/p>\n

\"TeresaTeresa Mannion and her husband Dave on their wedding day. <\/p>\n

I had my dress made by a designer who worked out of the Powerscourt Shopping Centre. My dress was a gold colour and he did a fabulous job; the attention to detail was incredible. I don\u2019t love too much fuss, so I wanted something low-key and comfortable.<\/p>\n

I remember, on the morning of the wedding in my parents\u2019 house, I had a lovely 10 minutes when I was completely on my own, waiting for the car to take me to the church, and everything was so calm and peaceful.<\/p>\n

My dad gave me away, and that was really special. Both my parents have since passed. On the day, he was more stressed or hyped up than me. You see, I was the first girl in the house to get married, so he was completely invested. I remember, a few months before the wedding, we were trying to work out the guest list and figuring out the numbers and the plus-ones.<\/p>\n

And I remember a lively discussion about who was coming, and my dad said to my brother: \u201cNow look, would you just stop now? This is me and Teresa\u2019s wedding!\u201d Well, we laughed, and we still laugh remembering that!<\/p>\n

I worked in the newsroom in RT\u00c9 at the time and one of my friends, Eileen Whelan, she reads the 1 o\u2019clock news, sang in the church for us. That was really lovely.<\/p>\n

I remember it was raining on the day, but there were little windows of opportunity to get photographed. We had the photographs taken on the grounds of the convent and in the botanic gardens. Then, the whole way over to Finnstown House it was lashing, but it wasn\u2019t something I was stressed about at all.<\/p>\n

\"TeresaTeresa Mannion, her husband Dave, and their wedding party on their wedding day. <\/p>\n

After the meal, we all made speeches. My husband, David, is a great storyteller, and he\u2019s funny on his feet, so he was great. My dad inadvertently got another big laugh when he referred to me as Goldilocks. He used to call me Goldilocks as a child, because of the colour of my hair. So he had said: \u201cAnd then Goldilocks grew up\u2026\u201d That got the biggest laugh.<\/p>\n

We had our first dance to Wet, Wet, Wet\u2019s song Love is All Around. To be honest, it was more about what the band could do rather than it having any particular meaning for us. Our band were brilliant; they were an all-female band. They went down a treat.<\/p>\n

My party piece over the years has always been The Beatles song When I\u2019m 64. My dad and I sang it together at my wedding. My dad was 64 when I got married (and, of course, I\u2019m 64 now!) and he was a great singer. He drove the DART, and he would sing while he was driving; he\u2019d have all his cassettes with him, and he\u2019d be learning songs all the time. Unbeknownst to me, he knew all the words of the song and he joined me on the night. It\u2019s a nice, special memory for me.<\/p>\n

Between the two of us, me working in RT\u00c9 and David working in the Connacht Tribune (he\u2019d also previously worked at The Examiner), we had a lot of journalist friends at the wedding. So it was a lively wedding, and it was so lovely to have everyone there with us.<\/p>\n

When I look back on the day, I can see that so many people who had been there with us have since passed away. In my mind\u2019s eye, I can still see them laughing at the speeches, dancing, and thoroughly enjoying themselves and being there for us. That\u2019s quite poignant, because so many of those people are gone now.<\/p>\n