ANTOINETTE TYRRELL and Kevin Codd were married recently in the Basilica San Silvestro in Rome by Fr Billy Swan, director of formation at the Irish College in Rome and a former neighbour of the groom’s parents in Wexford. The basilica is one of the most favoured Italian churches for Irish couples who choose to marry in Rome, traditionally with a small party of witnesses, but 60 friends and family members joined this celebration and spent almost a week in the city with them.
Antoinette grew up on the Kildare-Offaly border and went to school at St Mary’s in Edenderry before studying English and history at NUI Maynooth, where she also completed a HDip in communications. She now works as a press officer for a Government agency. Her father Pat Tyrrell died four years ago, and she was accompanied down the aisle by her mother, Bridget. Her sister Martina acted as bridesmaid along with her best friend Margaret Prendergast, who also designed her wedding dress.
Kevin comes from Glin in Co Wexford and is one of Ger and Theresa Codd’s five children, with three sisters and a brother. He went to Adamstown Vocational College and the couple met in 2000 when he was working in Hewlett Packard in Leixlip and she was still studying in Maynooth. He is now a contract manager for the Greenstar recycling company. His friends Willie Hickey and Brendan Farrell acted as groomsmen.
The couple had visited Rome five times since they first met, and said it was inevitable that they would marry there. San Silvestro provides a comprehensive advisory service for intending couples with information on everything from sopranos to hairdressers, which made the organisation relatively easy. They rented a penthouse beside the Spanish Steps, where their guests met each another the night before the wedding.
The service was held at 4.30pm, and afterwards they danced and dined in the Hotel Quirinale, with gardens next to the opera house. When midnight arrived, they repaired to Flann O’Brien’s, the nearest Irish pub, where the party continued until 2.30am.
They married on a Thursday and the last guests left on Sunday. After recovering on the Amalfi coast for 10 days, the couple returned to their home in Broadford, Co Kildare, where Kevin is active in the local GAA.
SHEILA O’KEEFFE and Patrick Nordstrom were married recently in the coach house of Blackwater Castle in Castletownroche, Co Cork by the Cork registrar, Rena Noonan.
The 12th-century castle was bought in 1991 by Patrick’s father, Dr Rabbe Nordstrom, who with his wife Ninna used it as a holiday/retirement home and envisaged developing it into a retreat for cancer patients. Dr Nordstrom died in 1998, however, and it is now used as a venue for weddings and corporate events.
Sheila, from Corbally, Limerick, is the daughter of Peadar and Eileen O’Keeffe. She has three siblings, Sarah, Eoghan and Mairead, who acted as her bridesmaid. She attended Ard Scoil Mhuire in Corbally and studied European studies and law at the University of Limerick.
She is now a solicitor with MJ O’Callaghan O’Keeffe in Mitchelstown.
Patrick’s family is Finnish, but he grew up in Germany with one younger brother, Christian. He studied business at the University of Cologne and had his own consultancy in crisis management in Germany before moving to Ireland permanently in 2004 to oversee renovation work on the castle. He had been a regular visitor over the years, and co-wrote a guidebook, Motorcycle Tours in the South of Ireland, for Mercier Press.
His mother still lives on the grounds, and the castle can now accommodate 35 people with additional support from local BBs for larger events. University College Cork will hold summer courses there this year, and they regularly host Finnish cultural events.
Hazel and Joe Bourke of Assolas House prepared the feast for their wedding and they later released 50 Chinese lanterns on the grounds in calm weather beneath a starlit sky and full moon.
The couple met at the Cork Jazz festival in 2005. They have a young baby, Moira Sinead, and Patrick has two children, Henrick and Lisa, from his first marriage.
They spent their honeymoon in Killarney and Kenmare and have made their home in a restored coach house on the grounds of the castle.