SUZANNE THORNHILL and Karl Murphy were married in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Castlemacadam, Co Wicklow, on Saturday, July 4th, by the Rev Canon George Butler, who described the wedding as one of the most joyful he had ever witnessed. The bride’s grandfather, Ron Bass, delivered several readings, including Corinthians 1/13: “ . . . Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs . . . ”
The bride’s cousin Sarah Bass sang throughout the ceremony and her youngest sister, Julie Thornhill, played guitar during the signing of the register.
Suzanne, who followed in her mother Christine’s footsteps as a nurse (above in blue), is now studying midwifery at UCD and Holles Street. She is the daughter of urologist John Thornhill of Malahide, and has three younger sisters: Adele, Carla and Julie, all of whom were bridesmaids, along with schoolfriend Annie Barclay and colleague Caoimhe Finn. Her family lived in Croydon for a period (“where I fell in love with curries and multicultural friends”), then in Indiana (“where we were ‘Hoosiers’ and slipped into American life with gusto”) and back to Ireland, where she attended Sutton Park School and Bruce College, before going to Oxford for her BSc in nursing.
Karl is the son of Valerie and Brendan Murphy of Malahide, and has one sister, Nadine. He attended St Michael’s College in Dublin 4 and is currently studying for the ACCA while working for accountants Leahy Co in Fairview.
The couple met on New Year’s Day in 1999, when Suzanne was “17-going-on-18”. Karl would often visit when she was studying in Oxford and later, while she was on an elective placement in Romania. “That’s when the travel bug set in,” says Suzanne, who worked in AE departments in Dublin before choosing to specialise in midwifery. In 2002 she and Karl travelled to India to visit her room-mate from Oxford, and went on to Cambodia and Thailand. Last year, Suzanne worked in Tanzania on two VSI voluntary programmes and Karl joined her for further travels through Uganda, Kenya and finally, Zanzibar.
“We were nearing the end of our stay when we came upon a jewellery shop and Karl said he wanted to buy me a present,” Suzanne explains. “I insisted I didn’t want anything as outrageous as jewellery after everything we’d seen, however one tanzanite ring did catch my eye. The next thing, I found myself in a makeshift swing and Karl asking me if I would spend the rest of my life with him. We were in such a beautiful place, on a darkened beach surrounded by shooting stars, and it seemed like a dream.’’
After their wedding they travelled to their reception at Ballybeg House in Ballinglen, Co Wicklow, in Volkswagen buses decorated with daisies (www.lazydays.ie). Molly’s Pantry supplied the feast at the house, which is set in the Vale of Avoca, and the Bionic Rats, a ska reggae band, provided the music.
The day after the wedding, guests returned to Ballybeg for a spit-roast dinner and more merriment. On Tuesday, the couple left for a honeymoon in Malaysia. They live in Waterside in Malahide, Co Dublin.