{"id":62435,"date":"2025-09-13T22:06:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T22:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/62435\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T22:06:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T22:06:09","slug":"the-ceremony-really-was-the-most-beautiful-part-of-our-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/62435\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The ceremony really was the most beautiful part of our lives\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> Dublin couple Emily Stolberg and Ciar\u00e1n Courtney\u2019s paths first crossed at the city\u2019s Hogans Bar on Fade Street on February 10, 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That was about six months after Emily had moved from her home city of Chicago.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/4777208_5_articleinline_737_1_.jpg\" alt=\"Emily Stolberg and Ciar\u00e1n Courtney. Pictures: Gareth McGaughey \" title=\"Emily Stolberg and Ciar\u00e1n Courtney. Pictures: Gareth McGaughey \" class=\"card-img\"\/>Emily Stolberg and Ciar\u00e1n Courtney. Pictures: Gareth McGaughey <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Emily and Ciar\u00e1n, from Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan, had both gone out that night with friends.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cI saw Ciar\u00e1n and thought he was super-cute, so I introduced myself and we chatted for hours,\u201d says Emily.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/4777211_5_articleinline_359_1_.jpg\" alt=\"Emily Stolberg and Ciar\u00e1n Courtney. Pictures: Gareth McGaughey \" title=\"Emily Stolberg and Ciar\u00e1n Courtney. Pictures: Gareth McGaughey \" class=\"card-img\"\/>Emily Stolberg and Ciar\u00e1n Courtney. Pictures: Gareth McGaughey <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cWe got each other&#8217;s numbers but didn&#8217;t chat much because it was around Valentine&#8217;s Day (too soon!) and then ran into each other at Hogans again two weeks later and started dating from then on.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Emily, a UX designer, and Ciar\u00e1n, a senior software developer, got engaged on December 20, 2023, in Austin, Texas.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/4777214_5_articleinline_304_1_.jpg\" alt=\"Emily Stolberg and Ciar\u00e1n Courtney. Pictures: Gareth McGaughey \" title=\"Emily Stolberg and Ciar\u00e1n Courtney. Pictures: Gareth McGaughey \" class=\"card-img\"\/>Emily Stolberg and Ciar\u00e1n Courtney. Pictures: Gareth McGaughey <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cIt was on a short trip I&#8217;d surprised Ciar\u00e1n with for his birthday \u2014 you can imagine my surprise getting engaged on a trip I planned as a surprise \u2014 we both can be full of surprises!\u201d says Emily.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">They exchanged vows exactly 18 months later, on June 20, 2024. \u201cWeirdly, we realised only recently that this was the exact date in 2021 that Ciar\u00e1n took me home to meet his family for the first time!\u201d says the bride.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/4777217_5_articleinline_116_1_.jpg\" alt=\"Emily Stolberg with Ashley Stolberg, Jillian Stolberg, Carlye Nealon, Barry Kavanagh, Bonnie Katz, Daniela Olano, Maya Siman and Clara Madroszkiewicz. \" title=\"Emily Stolberg with Ashley Stolberg, Jillian Stolberg, Carlye Nealon, Barry Kavanagh, Bonnie Katz, Daniela Olano, Maya Siman and Clara Madroszkiewicz. \" class=\"card-img\"\/>Emily Stolberg with Ashley Stolberg, Jillian Stolberg, Carlye Nealon, Barry Kavanagh, Bonnie Katz, Daniela Olano, Maya Siman and Clara Madroszkiewicz. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The ceremony and reception were both at Bellinter House Hotel and Spa, Co Meath.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cWe chose a humanist celebrant who allowed us to pick out every detail of the ceremony and hand-pick readings and share our own written vows, and both of us would say the ceremony really was the most magical and beautiful part of the day and our lives,\u201d says the bride.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cWe also had special \u2018us\u2019 parts of the wedding day and weekend, including personalised napkins, personalised beer koozies and speciality featured beers (as big beer drinkers ourselves), and most importantly, Irish wolfhounds to feel like Lilly &#8211; my late family dog, who was part Irish wolfhound &#8211; was still a part of the day with us.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/4777220_5_articleinline_356_1_.jpg\" alt=\"Emily Stolberg and Ciar\u00e1n Courtney. Pictures: Gareth McGaughey \" title=\"Emily Stolberg and Ciar\u00e1n Courtney. Pictures: Gareth McGaughey \" class=\"card-img\"\/>Emily Stolberg and Ciar\u00e1n Courtney. Pictures: Gareth McGaughey <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Photographer Gareth McGaughey ( <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/garethmcgaughey.com\">garethmcgaughey.com<\/a>) was behind the camera to capture the occasion the couple describe as \u201ceverything we could have wanted and more\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cAnd the highlight (besides marrying each other, of course!) was seeing all our family and friends from throughout our lives come together and collide and see how well everyone meshed together,\u201d says Emily.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cIt truly was the most beautiful thing we&#8217;ve experienced in our lives, especially with 50% of the guests flying in from America to be there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The bride dazzled in a Milla Nova Elada dress, teamed with a veil from Anna O Veils in Dublin.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cI wore Jimmy Choos, blue iridescent sandal heels for my &#8216;something blue&#8217;, and then my jewellery was mostly from my grandparents \u2014 a diamond necklace I inherited from my paternal grandmother, a gold bracelet I inherited from my maternal grandmother, and diamond studs my paternal grandparents gifted to me on my 16th birthday,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cMy rings (engagement and wedding band) were custom-made from Loyes Diamond on Wicklow Street in Dublin 2.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/4777223_5_articleinline_070_1_.jpg\" alt=\"Ciar\u00e1n Courtney. Pictures: Gareth McGaughey \" title=\"Ciar\u00e1n Courtney. Pictures: Gareth McGaughey \" class=\"card-img\"\/>Ciar\u00e1n Courtney. Pictures: Gareth McGaughey <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The newlyweds, who live in Rathmines, enjoyed a minimoon at the TRS Ibiza Hotel.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cAnother crazy timing thing that happened was I had applied for my Irish citizenship in November 2024 and was invited to the ceremony to officially become an Irish citizen the Tuesday after our wedding, so that was part of our mini-moon celebration and made the week even more special!\u201d says Emily.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">&#8220;We are planning a honeymoon to Japan, South Korea and the Maldives.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/4777226_5_articleinline_487_1_.jpg\" alt=\"The reception at the wedding of Emily Stolberg and Ciar\u00e1n Courtney at Bellinter House Hotel &amp; Spa. Pictures: Gareth McGaughey \" title=\"The reception at the wedding of Emily Stolberg and Ciar\u00e1n Courtney at Bellinter House Hotel &amp; Spa. Pictures: Gareth McGaughey \" class=\"card-img\"\/>The reception at the wedding of Emily Stolberg and Ciar\u00e1n Courtney at Bellinter House Hotel &amp; Spa. Pictures: Gareth McGaughey <\/p>\n<ul class=\"listbullet\">\n<li>If you would like your wedding featured in Weekend email eve.kelliher@examiner.ie<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dublin couple Emily Stolberg and Ciar\u00e1n Courtney\u2019s paths first crossed at the city\u2019s Hogans Bar on Fade Street&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[4488,18,117,19,17,7263],"class_list":{"0":"post-62435","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-irish-examiner-instagram","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-weddings"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}