My phone rang during the ceremony and I answered it

I wanted to get married around Halloween — my favourite holiday — so we got married on October 29, 2004. My husband, Harm Luijkx, is Dutch, so we had a civil ceremony in Amsterdam City Office right on the Amstel river.

At the time in Ireland, the rule was you could get married in a church or a registry office… and if you chose a registry office it had to be the one closest where you lived. I lived in Ashbourne in Meath at the time so the closest office was in Navan, and the building there was awful looking. That’s why we opted for Amsterdam.

The run of the day in a Dutch wedding is very different to Irish weddings. Everyone is invited to the ceremony, and then you have what they call the reception, which is where people come to congratulate you on your wedding: it’s just champagne and maybe some cake — no meal. It’s normal in Netherlands for people to only go to the reception, congratulate the bride and groom and then go on their merry way.

Separately, in the evening you have a party. And you decide who is invited to this part of the day. We had about 20 Irish people who travelled over from Ireland, and I think in total at the meal we had about 45 people.

Joanna Donnelly: After the ceremony, we waited for the boat and it was a beautiful day. I was playing with my daughter and my nieces; we were running around a fountain, and people were walking by and calling out congratulations to me. And honestly, at first it didn’t occur to me what they were congratulating me for, then I stopped and thought: “Oh yeah, I’m a bride.”

After the ceremony, we had our reception on a touring canal boat. We got on the boat at the civil offices, we had cake and champagne while it travelled up the river, and then we got off at the Pulitzer Hotel where our party was going to be.

The Pulitzer Hotel in Amsterdam was one of the locations for the film Ocean’s 12. It’s a very special hotel made from a series of canal houses all knocked through to create one large hotel. It’s really beautiful.

I had never really wanted a wedding. I had grown up being quite sure I didn’t want to be a bride or wear a wedding dress, or any of that. But we had a baby, our daughter, and to make sure to protect our child, should anything happen between us, we decided to get married.

I had originally bought a brown dress that was very pretty from Monsoon, and that was going to be my wedding dress. But then the wedding started to get bigger and bigger, and involving receptions and cakes, and I thought ‘I’d better get an actual wedding dress’. So I went back into Monsoon and exchanged the brown dress for a wedding dress off the rack.

Now I was very chilled and relaxed about it all… On the morning of the wedding I popped into a hairdresser and asked to get my hair done in an up-do. They asked: “Is it for anything nice?”. And I said I was getting married that day. They then suggested they could do my make up too and I thought ‘why not?’.

Joanna Donnelly: “I had never really wanted a wedding. I had grown up being quite sure I didn’t want to be a bride or wear a wedding dress, or any of that.”

Suddenly this was all taking far longer than I anticipated. When I got back to the apartment where my husband Harm was with our families, I realised the make-up was not me at all so I had to fix that before I went out in public. So we ended up being a bit late for our own wedding!

Then we arrived at the civil offices and we had our daughter with us — she was just one at the time. I had my bag and my daughter and I handed them both to my mother. 

About halfway through the ceremony my phone started ringing in my bag. My mother took my phone out of the bag, and instead of turning it off, she handed it to my daughter, who toddled over to me with it still ringing. I was so flustered then that I answered it! 

It was a friend of mine ringing to congratulate me on our wedding. I said: “I’m getting married.” And she said: “I know, that’s why I’m ringing”, and I said: “No, I’m getting married right now!”.

Joanna Donnelly and Harm getting married in Amsterdam.

It was very funny, everyone was laughing at me.

After the ceremony, we waited for the boat and it was a beautiful day. I was playing with my daughter and my nieces; we were running around a fountain, and people were walking by and calling out congratulations to me. And honestly, at first it didn’t occur to me what they were congratulating me for, then I stopped and thought: “Oh yeah, I’m a bride.”

Joanna Donnelly and Harm Luijkx with their daughter at their wedding in Amsterdam.

The meal in the hotel was amazing. Again, it’s not like in Ireland. I think we had quail for example. But it was so elegant and lovely. 

We’d gone to the hotel before the wedding for a taster menu and they treated us so well there, and had set up the table for a bridal tasting and it was such a special evening for us. We were unprepared for the elegance of it all.

Our wedding was put together very simply, but it was a really lovely day. It was so memorable, and all about us and our families.

Meteorologist Joanna Donnelly has written two books — The Great Irish Weather Book and From Malin Head to Mizen Head: A Journey Around the Sea Area Forecast. Available in all Irish bookshops.