My Wedding Day with Seán Mistéal: 'People thought we were mad not having a table plan, but everyone mingled'

Irish Examiner

27-05-2025

We got married on May 3, 2019, in Ballyferriter in West Kerry. It was a humanist wedding, and we had it outdoors. This lovely cafe, called Tig Áine, has a wonderful space out the back where the scenery is absolutely breathtaking, and that's where we had the ceremony.
We took a chance with the date for an outdoor wedding; you never know with the weather. The day before was howling wind and rain; I mean horizontal winds. But on the morning of the wedding, my father pulled back the curtains and calmly said, 'It's a fine day to get married.' The weather gods smiled on us.
My wife, Rianne, is from the Netherlands. We actually met in a pub in Galway, a traditional Irish pub called Tig Cóilí. She was here on holidays. All her family came over from the Netherlands for the wedding, and they were just absolutely blown away by the location and the scenery.
With a humanist wedding, you have so many options or rituals you can choose. We were a bit bamboozled looking at them, but Billy, our celebrant, said to pick the ones that felt right for us.
So we did the handfasting and the rings, and they were special and really symbolised our connection.
As I was waiting for my wife to arrive at the ceremony, my brother, who was one of my groomsmen, whispered to me, 'How are you feeling?' And I said to him, 'You know what? I'm strangely calm, I'm not nervous.' And he says, 'Of course, you're not, because you're marrying your best friend.' And I thought that was very powerful, and I got a little bit emotional, because that really summed it up: I was marrying my best friend.
Seán Mistéal and his wife Rianne celebrating after their wedding ceremony at Dún Chaoin in Kerry.
After the ceremony, we went to Dún Chaoin, where I'm from, for our photographs. There's amazing scenery there. Our photographer was my wife's cousin, Colin, and then the videographer was a man called Eoin Collins, who was a cameraman on Ros na Rún (he's actually a director there now). It was just quite funny, because I said to him beforehand, 'Treat me like I'm at work. Tell me where to stand and where to move.'
It was great having two people who knew us so well doing the photos and the video — they knew our personalities and what we like, that kind of thing. So we enjoyed that part of the day. So much so, the hotel — Ceann Sibéal in Ballyferriter — actually called us and said, 'Listen, the food is ready.' Now, we had decided on a buffet for the food and we didn't do a table plan — we don't believe in rules — so we said to the hotel, 'Serve away.'
You see, the theme of our wedding was that it wasn't necessarily about us; it was more about the coming together of both our families. So we thought, if the guests are hungry, they're hungry; the pictures were more important to us. So then we came in later and got a glass of champagne, and then we queued up for our own food with everyone else.
People thought we were mad not having a table plan, but what ended up happening was everyone mingled. And, instead of it being the Irish over there and the Dutch over there, it was all mixed together, and that's exactly what we wanted.
Seán Mistéal and his wife Rianne at Tig Áine for their humanist ceremony.
After the buffet, we had the speeches, which ended up being a little bit of a roast. Nothing offensive at all, just taking the mickey. I made a speech, but I kept it short and simple, said a few words in Dutch to thank Rianne's family for making the trip over. My wife's two sisters spoke, too, and also did a little roast of Rianne, which was quite funny.
We had a DJ then, a great fella who was recommended by my best man, Conall. I went up to him at the start, and I says, 'You can play whatever you want, but no ABBA.' Of course, my best man heard that, and he was actually offering DJ Dowdy money to play ABBA, but, in fairness, he stayed true to his word and didn't play them.
Our first dance was You and Me, by Pink. I'm no dancer, so we did practise a bit before the day, and we got there in the end.
There was great craic going on. We even did a mock Riverdance routine, which the Dutch thought was going to be the real deal. I ended up going to bed earlier than my wife. It was such a long day and I was just so tired. I think I went home at two o'clock, and my wife came in at four.
The second day was more relaxed. We went to Páidí Ó Sé's pub and they did a lovely spread for us. We invited Rónán Flaherty to come and play on that second day. His father owns the pub where myself and my wife met in Galway. He's a great musician. That was a bit of a special connection to where we first met.
Six years later, when I look back on the day, not to be cliche, but the first memory I have is of my wife walking up the aisle. She was absolutely gorgeous. And another big memory is of going to the graveyard, because my mom had passed away a few years before the wedding, so we decided to do a picture at the grave site. So that was very powerful and emotional.
'Ros na Rún' is broadcast twice weekly on TG4 on Tuesday and Thursday at 8.30pm, with an omnibus on Sunday at 7.30pm.