‘Let’s do this as a family’

DOUBLE JOY Christening guests stunned as surprise wedding unfolds

Guests at a Christening were left dumbstruck at the weekend when the event transformed into a surprise wedding ceremony.

There was a dramatic intake of breath when Philip and Noirín King (née De Róiste), dressed in white, first appeared at St Patrick’s Church in Corlough, County Cavan.

Together, and as a family with their two young children Philip (4) and Grace (seven months), the couple from Dernacrieve walked up the aisle to greet Fr Sean Maguire, one of very few people in on the happy ruse.

The double celebration was months in the planning, with the secret nuptials kept carefully under wraps until the big day (and reveal) on Saturday last, October 3.

“It had and it hadn’t,” says Tipp-native Noirín when asked if this had been the couple’s plan all along.

Not ones for “the big wedding”, when the pair first got engaged back in July 2017, they had discussed September 4, 2020, as a potential date to get hitched. But, between one thing and another, that date passed by.

It was only after daughter Grace was born this year, sitting at their kitchen table planning her Christening last June, with Covid restrictions weighing heavily on their minds, Noirín turned to her other half and proposed marrying the two events.The first person the couple confided in was Fr Maguire.

“I was booking the christening with him and I said ‘I have another request for you Father’,” remembers Noirín.

Admittedly initially somewhat taken aback, the affable Fr Maguire quickly agreed.

A date in October was provisionally booked, with the time required by the couple to obtain their marriage licence taken into account.

“It went from there. We just went about our business, planning things nice and quietly,” explains Philip.

The only other co-conspirators in the plot were Noirín and Philip’s sisters, Cathy King and Joanna Roche, and the venue where the couple held their wedding reception, the picturesque Tully Mill in Florencecourt, Fermanagh.

Philip and Noirín greeted their wedding day with a mixture of both excitement and nerves.

If anything, in the run-up, the biggest stress was not the planning, but keeping their arrangements top secret.

As happens, when the Philips, Sr and Jr, suitably suited, and Noirín, resplendent in white from head to toe with baby grace in her christening gown in her arms, pulled up at St Patrick’s church, there were a “few stragglers” scattered outside.

One was Philip’s brother-in-law.

“I could read his lips. He was asking ‘is she wearing a wedding dress?’,” recalls Philip. “I just mouthed back ‘yes she is’. It was very funny.”

Those within the chapel were equally as stunned.

“We were at the church that day and it was happening. The way it all fell, it was meant to be,” Noirín tells The Anglo-Celt. “We are a family, there’s the four of us in it, our thinking was ‘let’s do this as a family’.”

Philip acknowledges that, afterwards, all their guests said it was the “best surprise” they ever got.

“Everyone enjoyed it, and everyone will remember it.”

Baby Grace got christened too, right after Philip and Noirín exchanged vows and Fr Maguire had announced their union.

“Only for Fr Séan it never would have happened,” thanks Noirín.

Grace’s big brother Philip even tells the Celt how much of a great day it was. “The best day ever,” he announces, adding with playful youthful enthusiasm: “... and mammy and daddy, they were kissing!”

Noirín and Philip have advice for any couples suffering wedding heartbreak due to plans scuppered by heightened health restrictions.

“You can still make it happen. A small intimate wedding can be just as beautiful and enjoyable, everything you imagined,” offers Noirín. “It doesn’t have to be the 500 or 300 people wedding. It’s about making it about yourselves.”