Our wedding story: Family day in sunny France

George-Ruth O’Neill and Garry McGuinness When project specialist George-Ruth (33), from Salthill in Galway first met Cork man Garry (40) through work four year ago she was impressed. She says that she thought he was the most amazing person she had ever met, “professionally and personally”.

"After a bumpy start", they became friends and Garry, a mortgage manager, offered Ruth a ticket to a Lisa Hannigan gig.

“The concert wasn’t until the middle of December and as my invitation was issued in the middle of October I suggested we meet and spend some time together between the two dates,” said the bride, who was named after her maternal grandfather.

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In May 2013, Garry asked George-Ruth to marry him during a break at Castlemartyr Hotel in Cork.

Initially, she wanted to elope. “But once we were engaged I realised how much our respective families were invested in our happiness and it just felt wrong to leave them out.”

After visiting several hotels in Ireland, they decided to look farther afield at venues that fit their budget and fulfilled criteria of great food and sunshine.

Most importantly was that their wedding was “a family day centred on those who are our world”.

Garry found Patricia O'Reilly of Country Weddings of Gascony and they were married last month in Château Tres Chic at Mauvezin, France.

Nineteen guests (12 adults and seven children) joined the couple for a week including the groom's older sister Sonya McGuinness, who performed the humanist marriage ceremony and her husband, the Irish ambassador to India, Feilim McLaughlin; his twin Aisling, and younger sister Sheelagh, parents Mary and Frank McGuinness and the bride's mother Antoinette O'Neill.

George-Ruth’s sister Faith O’Neill did a reading during the ceremony and other family members and friends did prayers of the faithful.

Garry created his own playlist for the day and the couple's first dance was to The One by Kodaline.

The newlyweds spent their honeymoon on a Caribbean cruise and live in Midleton, Co Cork.

Photographs: Ciarán Macken