A Gorgeous Glenview Hotel Wedding by Zi Fernandes Photography

“The most special moment was seeing my wife-to-be walk into the room and down the aisle with my father. The most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I knew I had made the best decision of my life.”

The couple: Luzia & Donal
Wedding date: June 2017
Wedding venue: Glenview Hotel & Leisure Club, Wicklow
Photographer: Zi Fernandes Photography

We met… I am from Brazil and Donal is from Ireland. I came to Ireland to learn English for a few months but after meeting him, things changed. We met for the first time in Bray and followed that up with our first real date in a restaurant in Dublin. Everything just moved on from there.

My hair… was done by Roger de Lucca. He was amazing, very kind and kept me calm. He’s a fantastic professional.

Our proposal… I arrived home one day and everything seemed normal, I went into the living room to find the room covered in rose petals, candles and flowers in the shape of a love heart. Donal got down on one knee and proposed. When I saw that I froze, many things went through my mind but I said yes because I knew that I loved him enough to move my whole life to Ireland.

My look… As we planed our wedding day in a really short amount of time and we were also planing to go to Brazil, I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on my wedding dress and believe it or not, it was easy to find a great dress at a great price. I decided on a pre-owned dress – it was the perfect fit and exactly the kind of dress I was looking for.

We chose our photographer because… When I contacted Zi Fernandes, I knew she would be the perfect photographer for our wedding, she is very sweet and helpful, she gave us a lot of new ideas about the kind of shots we could get. She also provided a pre-wedding shoot, this really put our mind at ease as we could see the quality of her work before the wedding day. On our wedding day she was very professional and was a pleasure to work with, it is easy to see she has a real passion for her work and that makes a huge difference in the final results. We love our pictures.

Our theme… We didn’t really have a unique theme at our wedding but we tried to include both traditions from Ireland and Brazil. We provided our guests with Brazilian sweets and Brazilian style favours. We also had some Brazilian music.

Our favours… We wanted to give our guests something different as wedding favours, something that they could keep for a long time and something that was unique and would represent my local area in Brazil. We spent a lot of time looking for a nice plant that was both small and beautiful. Our florist helped us to find small cactus and succulents that were displayed in beautiful small vases of different types. It went down very well and our guests really loved them and continue to talk about them until this day.

We chose our venue because… The venue we decided on was the Glenview Hotel in Co. Wicklow. We chose this venue because of the beautiful location and the amazing views of the surrounding area. The venue was perfect on the day with all the staff being very nice and professional and doing everything they could to make the day go smoothly. The food was served very quickly and it was very nice.

The bridal party… The bridesmaids both wore a pink dress. The groom, best man and groomsmen wore grey suits from Anne Gregory Bridal with the groom wearing a silver tie and the best man and groomsmen wearing a blue tie.

My favourite part of the day… For me, the groom, the most special moment was seeing my wife-to-be walk into the room and down the aisle with my father. The most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I knew I had made the best decision of my life.

For me, the bride, there was so many special moments, some of the ones that stand out include the moment I saw my bouquet, my bridesmaids surprised me and put a pendant on it with a picture of my family, as my family could not come to our wedding. I was overcome with emotion. Another moment was the surprise speech my father had sent to my bridesmaid to read. And when I saw my soon-to-be husband for the first time that day.