Emma walked down the aisle to a piano cover of Welcome to the Black Parade. Later, she and Dylan entered their reception doing the dance moves to Rollin’ by Limp Bizkit. Somewhere between the two came Celtic handfasting, cowboy hat ring boxes, an oathing stone and some pissed off crows. It was exactly the wedding day they wanted.

The Irish couple met shortly after lockdown and moved to London together before getting engaged in Japan two years later. For their wedding at The Station House Hotel in Kilmessan, County Meath, they returned to Ireland with a plan keep it low-key, make it fun and fill it with music.

Pink and red was the overarching colour scheme. Emma had already dyed her hair pink and had always pictured herself wearing a pink wedding dress, while red-haired Dylan completed the accidental colour coordination. The couple added traditional tattoo motifs, retro typography and a hint of Vegas, then sent their guests Pinterest moodboards and asked them to dress for a rock ‘n’ roll wedding.

“We had a mix of inspirations, including simply the colour pink”, Emma said. “We skipped the white dress, but I was always planning on that – I look terrible in white! Getting my dress made was the best part of the planning. I tried to find what I wanted everywhere but my mum had heard about C&M Designs through her work. We went out there on a whim and Rebecca did such an amazing job, I could not have had a more perfect dress.”

Dylan designed the stationery and table decorations, including using a collection of old seven-inch records from her dad, who had passed away, as the table markers. The stickers were changed to represent a song they had seen performed live together with the date of the concert.

The couple handled much of the styling themselves, buying disco balls, candlesticks, fairy lights, sweet bowls and decorations. Emma’s mum created the flowers around peonies, Emma’s favourite, while a friend made their vintage heart-shaped cake. The venue’s team helped arrange the decorations and flowers on the morning of the wedding.

The ceremony took place in the venue’s forest area. Emma’s friend, Faolan, walked her down the aisle. The couple had shared their vows with each other in advance, but both still cried while saying them. Their celebrant, Trisha Bonham Corcoran, incorporated two Celtic traditions – a handfasting and an oathing stone for them to hold while making their commitment.

The woodland setting did come with an unexpected backing track. “The crows at our ceremony were so pissed off from the rain that you can hear their cawing in every video clip!” Emma laughed. “Dylan and I are getting crow tattoos on our anniversary in their honour!”

The couple didn’t have a live band, because they don’t personally enjoy them, Instead their friend DJ Coleen, who us a famous DJ in Ireland, provided the entertainment. Emma is also a DJ, so she took over for a 45-minute set.

Planning a less traditional wedding in Ireland required some compromises. Emma found that the available choices were narrower than those she had encountered in the UK, but thankfully their friends and families supported their ideas. “I don’t think Ireland is as well set up as the UK in terms of options for planning a less traditional wedding, which can honestly make things harder”, she admitted. “We ended up being fine, but it did make things a bit challenging.”

However, as they did so much themselves, they were able to design their wedding to be exactly how they wanted. They had a great experience with all their vendors but do have a few comments about the wedding industry in general. “I wish we could give up the idea that everything should be ‘perfect’. No one’s wedding is perfect but we all try to project this completely serene perfection. I want more people to be open about the funny little things that go wrong so we can all take a deep breath and remove so much pressure from ourselves. There is so much pressure on particularly women, to have this insane, perfect, editorial day. Let’s just throw that out the window and talk about the fact that the crows at our ceremony were so pissed off from the rain that you can hear their cawing in every video clip!”