Aisling Bonner and her husband Alex got married in Dublin City centre back in June. Pictures: John Gillooley
We got married on June 12, 2026. My husband, Alex, is American and he came to Ireland five years ago to move in with me. We’ve always lived in Dublin City centre and it made sense for the wedding to be here.
We had our ceremony in Smock Alley Theatre. I’m a big fan of musicals. I’ve done them all my life, so that was symbolic. And then we had our reception in Hen’s Teeth in Dublin 8, which is a cool, arty event space.
We had a humanist ceremony. Ruth Scott, who is a former 2FM Breakfast Show host, was our celebrant, and she was amazing.
During the ceremony, a few of my friends who I did musicals with in college sang Louis Armstrong’s song A Kiss to Build a Dream On and Madness’s It Must Be Love, accompanied by Alex’s best man on piano. Then, my friend tore the house down with a rendition of Niamh Kavanagh’s song In Your Eyes. I walked up the aisle to Here Comes the Bride.
After the ceremony, as we walked down the aisle, a staff member walked in with eight boxes of Bambino pizza piled high that we served immediately.
We had a few personal touches throughout the day: A friend of ours designed the invitations with a theatrical theme. Alex is a big fan of pinball and runs a pinball business in Dublin called Pinballia, so we had a pinball machine at the reception that people could play. And we had a friend doing cartoony life drawings.
We made most of our own decorations. Between me, my mom, and my bridesmaids, we crocheted 150 hearts!
We had about 90 guests for dinner, and another 40 or so came for the afters. I think 50% of the guests at the dinner were from abroad. We had 35 that flew over from America, and friends from Vietnam, London, and Sydney.
I was nervous that I was never going to find a dress that I really loved, so I put off doing the dress shopping for ages. The dress I ended up getting was the first one I tried on, and I immediately loved it. So my big fear was completely dispelled. Then, I thought to myself, ‘I’m going to look amazing in every dress’, but that wasn’t true. It was just that one. My mom and I went to two other shops, and nothing compared to the first dress.
Because we live in town, we don’t have cars and just walk and bus everywhere. The place I got my dress from was only a 10-minute walk from my house, so it didn’t even occur to me to do anything but walk home with the dress. The girls in the shop were horrified that I wasn’t getting a taxi. I thought it’d be a bit of craic, then, to film myself walking home with the dress.
For the bridesmaid dresses, I said: ‘Let’s make them all different colours.’ I have to say, that nearly broke me; it took a couple of weeks off my life expectancy. I was crawling through dress websites for weeks trying to find the right ones.
On the morning of the wedding, I was definitely jittery. It was more that I was wired all morning; the adrenaline was flying, but I was having a ball. It was a busy room; my mom was there, and my mother-in-law, and all the rest. I remember when I sat down to get my makeup done, I took a really long, deep breath in to try and steady myself.
Although Alex was nervous before the wedding, on the day itself he was a man transcendent; nothing could faze him, he was absolutely delighted with life. He did an amazing speech. All my friends were howling, crying, listening to it.
We had our first dance to Time After Time, by Cindy Lauper. And we did a simple little routine with a bit of waltzing, a bit of salsa, and a fancy lift at the end. We ended up doing the lift three or four times throughout the night.