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Irish Examiner

My Wedding Day with Fionnuala Moran: 'We had no less than 12 speeches'

We got married on July 3, 2025, in Rathsallagh Country House in Wicklow. It was the first venue we viewed. The team are so brilliant there that I just knew that they were going to take so much stress off our plates. We also have big families, the pair of us, so we knew it was going to be a big wedding and to have the exclusive use of the venue was great. We had the ceremony at the venue, too. It was a Celtic ceremony, with the Temple of Éiriú, which celebrates all of Ireland's ancient traditions. As well as our own personalised vows, the celebrant performed a water blessing using water from the Hill of Tara. There was also a bog-oak blessing and a swan-feather blessing. It was really cool and added such a lovely, grounding element to the ceremony. Music is such a huge thing for us, with Aaron being a musician and me being a radio DJ, so we wanted music to be present throughout the day. For the ceremony, we had Melina Malone doing the singing for us, with Steve McCann on the guitar with her. And, then, we had a brilliant harpist, called Fionnuala Monk — the harp is one of Ireland's three ancient instruments, so it was lovely to have that featured. We're both very proudly patriotic in a positive sense, so it was a really nice celebration of Ireland. Fionnuala Moran and Aaron Hartigan on their wedding day That was our theme running through the whole wedding. I was the first person to wear the Grá veil down the aisle. It's part of Mizz Rio's new Daughters of Ireland Collection, which was inspired by Maud Gonne's Inghinidhe na hÉireann movement to promote Irish culture. It had pink beading displaying the word 'grá' in ogham. I'm a sustainability advocate, so my dress was always going to be sustainable in some way. I found it in the sustainable bridal boutique, Cirq, in Naas, where they sell second-hand, vintage, and ex-sample dresses. It was a really light, tulle dress, with a corset waist and a flared skirt, and it was so comfortable to wear. I'd planned the wedding mostly by myself. We got engaged two years before, so I had plenty of time to plan everything. But, of course, the one thing you can't control is the weather. We got so lucky, though. Everyone was saying to me in the morning, 'There's rain forecast at half three, maybe we should move inside.' But my vision was a beautiful outdoor ceremony with all the nature leanings that we had added to the ceremony, so I held fast. And just as we were coming up at the time when everyone started arriving, the rain stopped and the sun came out. Fionnuala Moran and Aaron Hartigan walk down the aisle After the ceremony, we went straight through to the reception, and we kicked that off with the cake. I just wanted to give the cake its moment; sometimes, I feel like the cake gets forgotten. We had this beautiful cake in gold and pink and orange. Vibrant sunrise was our colour theme for the day. Before the dinner, then, we had a little bit of time on our own together. And then we were getting welcomed back in for dinner. We wanted to incorporate one of the other ancient Irish instruments: The bodhrán. We had organised a bodhrán lesson for everyone and there were 140 bodhráns under the tables! That was a big reveal for everyone, and they were all really shocked by that. It was just a really nice way to make the welcoming back into the room Irish, because a lot of people do the lovely, twirling the napkins around in the air, but I think that's some Greek tradition. We reinvented this in, like, an Irish way. So they all played the bodhrán as we walked back in. Fionnuala Moran and Aaron Hartigan with their dogs We had no less than 12 speeches. So we love speeches, and we love our bride-and-groom party and wanted everyone to have a chance to speak. I understand that that is a lot of speeches, but we were very strict on the time limit, and we spread them out. At the end of the drinks reception, after the ceremony, we had the first four speeches. Then, at the meal, we had the next set: Myself and Aaron and both of our dads. And then, at dinner on day two, we had the rest of our groom-and-bridal party speak. For our first dance — God bless us — we planned everything, except that dance, so we were just floating around in circles; we didn't have a breeze, it was very amusing. And it's a slow song, as well, which is not what we do. It was a beautiful song, by Laurel: On Spotify it's Untitled, but the song is generally known as Hold On. Our band was a collection of so many brilliant artists — Chloe Agnew, Melina Malone, and Niall from Eurosong, as well. It was an eight-piece band. And they played anything and everything on the night. We were sensible enough — I think the music was done at 2am. It's coming up to a month since the day now, and the lasting memory I have is those clouds parting for the ceremony. It was the kind of moment where I was able to stop wearing my shoulders as earrings, and could just go in to the day and really enjoy it. Follow Fionnuala and Aaron on Instagram at @fionnualamoran and @