Cork woman and alopecia advocate Chloe Dinneen's breathtaking wedding after surprise proposal

THE HAPPY COUPLE

Chloe Sheehan and Declan Dinneen from Cork.

THE PROPOSAL

We got engaged October 2021.

Two or three times a year Declan will take me on a surprise date usually to a restaurant that I have been banging on about wanting to go!

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This time I knew it was in the east Cork direction because he said we would drop our dog to his sister's and we would stay there for the night. We drove down and as Declan missed the turn off for Cloyne I asked where he was going. He said that there was a big cruise liner taking off from Cobh and we could go have a look as we were so early.

This didn’t seem out of character for Declan as we once went to view a tractor en route to a wedding! As we got up to Fort Davis in Whitegate I couldn’t see any boat. It was misty and I was complaining my wig was getting wet and my feet were getting sore from my heals.

Declan was adamant we wait another few minutes. From afar I heard a buzzing noise, we soon realised it was a drone and as it got closer I was hiding my face and said to Declan 'Someone’s trying to get photos of the liner and here I am all dolled up ruining the shot!'

Dec asked me what was hanging off the drone and I saw 'Will you marry me' - as I turned back around Dec was on one knee. He had arranged the whole thing with one of my really good friends from SpeirTime and they had tiny hidden cameras in the bushes!

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Fort Davis is where we went on our first date and will forever hold such a special place in our hearts.

TTE FIRST GLANCE

We first met at the wedding of Declan’s cousin to my friend. It was almost the end of the night and as people fizzled off the dance floor it was just myself and Dec left.

'Shut-up and Dance With Me' was playing and we danced together and it changed our lives forever. We went out to the residents bar and chatted and laughed for hours. When I was leaving he asked for a kiss which I politely declined. He wasn’t going to give up that easy as he messaged me the following evening! We fell madly in love with each other from day one.

THE RECEPTION

We had our reception at Dunloe Hotel and Gardens it was sensational.

We had viewed a couple of places that I loved but Declan is very chill and wasn’t overly excited about any. We viewed The Dunloe and I asked Dec what did he think and he said 'I love it' I emailed the hotel on the drive back to cork and booked it!

THE DRESS

I got my dress in Verona Bridal and it was designed by Milla Nova. It was the first shop I had gone to and we were about 15 minutes into the appointment. I just knew as I was stepping into it that it was so me!

THE PHOTOGRAPHER

We had Janusz and Justyna from Januszt Photography they are husband and wife and their dynamic is unreal!

THE BAND

Our band was the phenomenal Riff Shop. We had them for the full day - they did a cool pool side chill set at the drinks reception and brought the high energy set after dinner. It was amazing, the dance floor was full all night long.

THE FIRST DANCE

Our first dance was to an acoustic version of 'Shut-up and Dance With Me' sung by our friend Niamh Kirby. This is the song we literally met to and is so special to us. We also used it for walking out of the church played by Vltava String Quartet.

THE HIGHLIGHTS

I’ve always written poems and so I wrote a poem for every single guest before we even knew who could and couldn’t attend! I started about 11 months ago and they were such a hit. The hard work and late nights I put into writing those poems was worth every second.

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As a surprise I stood up and said 'Declan on our wedding day the 16th of June, there’s one person left to write a poem for and that’s my groom…..' It went down such a hit with the guests, they laughed, they cried, and they just felt the love.

The morning of was so much fun. We had a pianist playing my parents grand piano, everyone was just buzzing. They were all panicking over the downpour of rain but I couldn’t have cared less. I was just so ready to walk up the aisle to the love of my life.

THE STRESS FACTOR

I wanted a long enough engagement, 20 months, to get a lot of organising done as I love details and knew my wedding would be full of details! We even had mints in the bathroom that were single packed polos matching our invitations that said Declan and Chloe ‘mint’ to be!

There is so much you can’t do until very close to the wedding and we had a lot going on at this time. I was very conscious of my stress levels hoping not to kick off my Alopecia. I did find two patches the week before the wedding but these were easily covered up with brown eye shadow on the wedding day!

THE HONEYMOON

We went traveling around Australia for six weeks in December. It was incredible, full of adventure and completely us! We are also going to Croatia for a week to relax.

THE ADVICE

Trust your vendors! Remember they have done this a million times before so they are the experts.

As wedding favours, we had key rings of photos of the guests entering the church from Clikring. We had hand poured heart wax melts of our personalised scent done by the amazing Twilight Wax Company and we had the poems printed by Print Studio in Carrigaline.

We had the amazing Pamela from Toast Wedding content all day with us. She has sent me thousands of clips and it’s so fun watching back on little behind the scenes!

We had fireworks from Nationwide Fireworks and were able to spend time with The Dunloe’s Mixologist Nico, designer of our wedding cocktails and these were just amazing.

You can follow Chloe's Instagram here, where she raises awareness on Alopecia.

Would you like to have your wedding featured in RSVP Magazine and on our website RSVP Live? Get in touch with kathy.prendeville@reachplc.com