Our Wedding Story: Meeting in Yamamori and a first date in Bewleys

After dinner in Yamamori restaurant with his sister one evening in 2014, David (31) from Enniscrone, Co Sligo, met Hinata (25), who had come from Tokyo the previous year to study in Dublin.

In a move later described as “dodgy” by a laughing Hinata, David slipped her his business card and suggested they meet again for coffee.

Their first date was at Bewley's on Grafton Street and they got engaged in May 2015.

On October 10th last year, David and Hinata were married in a humanist ceremony at the National Gallery of Ireland.

Witnessed by 30 guests, the ceremony included readings by the groom's sisters of When you are Old by WB Yeats and a letter from James Joyce to Nora Barnacle. David's nieces were the flower girls,

Friends Emma and Johnny played Loving You by Minnie Ripperton for the bride's arrival, and At Last by Etta James for the couple's departure.

Afterwards the married couple were picked up in a horse and carriage and taken through Merrion Square and Fitzwilliam Square to cheers and applause from passersby.

They were dropped off and "flower- showered" at the Alexander Hotel for the reception where they were joined by almost 100 more guests and both fathers, and David's brothers, made speeches.

Hinata's parents are Mitsuru and Keiko Yamagishi and David's are Gregory and Dympna Hallinan.

Hinata works in UCD, where David has just finished his PhD in Political Science and they live in Rathgar.

Photograph: Tetsutaro Kawakami