Our wedding story: this butcher’s steaks were on the menu

[ irishtimes.com/weddings ]

Midwife Annabel Murphy (33) from Rathmines and Stephen Buckley (33), who works in the family business of FX Buckley restaurants, from Cabinteely first met in 2000 while studying at Shannon College of Hotel Management.

Annabel spent some years working in hotels and travelling abroad before she went back to study nursing and finished a higher diploma in midwifery in February.

After meeting again in Buck Whaley’s on Leeson Street in 2011, Stephen proposed to Annabel in June 2013 on the beach in Mullaghmore, Co Sligo, where she has been holidaying since childhood.

They were married in the Church of the Three Patrons in Rathgar on April 18th with a reception afterwards at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham (RHK).

The caterers were With Taste and FXB steaks were on the menu.

Stephen and Annabel, assisted by her aunt Germaine Murphy, made place-name holders using toy plastic cows which they spray-painted silver and gold. “It took months,” said Annabel.

On the morning of the wedding, the bride (wearing a dress from The White Room in Mullingar) got ready in the family home.

“It was a really special time as my brothers and sister came with their partners and children for drinks and photos before the church.”

Her sister Fiona and two friends Michelle Curtin and Jessica Wickham were bridesmaids.

The groom – with best man Stephen O’Gara and groomsmen Cronin Lavelle and Barry Cassidy – spent the morning getting ready in his and Annabel’s house in Donnybrook before meeting his brother in FXB’s on Pembroke Street for a drink before the church. He wore a suit from Louis Copeland.

“It was really special that my friend Amy came home from Oz with her husband and did a reading,” said Annabel. “My first time seeing her in two years was in the church.”

The newlyweds' first dance was to Dream a Little Dream by Mama Cass and when wedding band Harlequin finished playing and the RHK closed at 2am, the party continued at The Bull and Castle on Lord Edward Street.

The couple mini-mooned in Paris and Mullaghmore.

Photographs: The Campbells, campbellphotography.co.uk

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