Joanna Cluskey — I’ve been to Dingle once in my life… to get married

We got married on May 3, 2014. Because it was the May bank holiday weekend, we did a whole three-day event.

Where we got married is a bit of a long story. I’d never been to Dingle in my life but my husband Daniel has cousins in Dingle, and he showed me a photo of a place there called Ballintaggart House.

As it turns out, my dad, in the early days of myself and Danny going out, showed Ballintaggart House to Danny and said: “My God, that’s a gorgeous place to get married.”

Cut to years later when we were planning our wedding and Danny showing it to me — turns out his cousin John managed it at the time and his auntie Clodagh did all the cooking and the wedding cakes. I took one look and said: “Yes, let’s do it.” To a venue I’d never seen in real life, in a place I’d never been. It was a bit mad.

Our friends were cursing us because we’re all from Galway so it’s a bit of a trek to Dingle but we brought everyone down on the Friday for the full weekend — it was like a destination wedding. It was a small-enough wedding… I got the list down to 102 people. We booked out the whole house, and they had separate apartments too for all our guests.

Joanna and Daniel Cluskey at Dick Mack’s in Dingle on their wedding day

I planned everything myself. I did the flowers myself. I ordered them off eBay and did all the flower arranging. The bridesmaids had dried lavender bouquets and I had dried baby’s breath. I also made floral arrangements for the church. It worked out lovely. I wanted to keep everything very minimal — we were saving for a house at the time so we didn’t want to spend thousands and thousands of euro.

And my dress. I didn’t want to do the whole faff of going around trying on dresses. So I went onto this website in Australia called Grace Loves Lace — they have really unusual, just kind of bohemian-looking dresses; I’d say they were fashion-forward at the time. They were beautiful handmade lace and just really, really pretty. So I ordered my dress online.

The bridesmaids wore long, powder-blue Zara dresses, and Danny picked a beautiful Ted Baker suit.

Joanna Cluskey: “On the morning of the wedding I was so excited. Because everyone was in the house there was a lovely family feel. I had no nerves on the day, I was just very very happy and excited.”

On the morning of the wedding, I was so excited. Because everyone was in the house, there was a lovely family feel. I had no nerves on the day, I was just very, very happy and excited.

Then we got to the church, and my husband Danny used to be in a band called The Kanyu Tree, and he actually sang me up the aisle. He sang Into My Arms by Nick Cave, and it was beautiful. I broke down crying then, it was so lovely.

Then his brothers, who he was in the band with, did the music in the church and that was just gorgeous.

Afterwards, we all headed back to the venue for the meal and the speeches. I was the first daughter to get married in my family so it was an emotional one for my parents. For the band then, my husband had said he and his brothers would be the wedding band. He really wanted to do it. So they did, and it was great. They played some of their own songs, of course, and then all the hits of the day. Everyone was up dancing.

Joanna Cluskey: “I went onto this website in Australia called Grace Loves Lace — they have really unusual, just kind of bohemian-looking dresses, I’d say they were fashion-forward at the time. They were beautiful handmade lace, and just really, really pretty.”

We didn’t actually have a first dance — we did a first song. We had been speaking during the planning and neither of us wanted to have a first dance. I sing a little bit so we said, ‘Let’s do a song together.’ We sang Feeling Groovy by Simon & Garfunkel and it went down well.

And then we had this plan that we wanted to do a silent disco. We know Gugai here, who manages the Róisín Dubh in Galway. So he gave us all the headsets and glow sticks for the disco and, of course, we brought Buckfast with us — it’s a real Galway thing. And we had a silent disco, which was the best craic into the early hours of the morning.

Looking back on the day, you know what, there was no stress. Like, I actually don’t think I stressed out over anything. And don’t get me wrong, I can be a stress head — I’m a perfectionist, I have OCD, I suffer with anxiety. But I was like, ‘You know what? This is just such a gorgeous day and I’m so in love and all our family are here.’ It’s a lovely memory.

And would you believe we haven’t been back to Dingle since? I’ve been to Dingle once in my life — to get married. I need to definitely plan a visit there soon.

Joanna Cluskey is a model, a stylist, and has an Instagram account where she shares fashion and beauty advice at stylebyjo.ie