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Planning a St. Patrick's Day Wedding

Even if you are not Irish but want to have the Luck of the Irish for your Wedding or Event we will need to take a trip over the rainbow to find our pot of gold. Let’s go…

Choosing a Venue

Whenever you plan a wedding the first thing will be to secure your ceremony and reception venues. This may be the same place or two separate locations. For a St. Patrick’s Day wedding you may want to choose an older church or even have an outdoor wedding ceremony and reception so that you may use a Maypole. The Maypole is a beautiful pole decorated by children with ribbons coming down from the top of the pole. Each child grabs a ribbon and they dance around in a circle around the pole!!! This is very beautiful when done at an outdoor wedding reception. For the St. Patrick’s Day wedding you could decorate the Maypole with Green and White ribbons.

Invitations

Once you have chosen the location, you will want to choose your invitations. For our St. Patrick’s Day Wedding let’s go with white paper invitations and a Celtic knot cross on our invitations with green writing. I would like to use the color emerald green for this wedding but the color of green you choose is completely up to you. Just remember to keep the same color of green constant throughout the entire wedding. For the programs we will also use the same style that we chose for our invitations: the white paper, Celtic Knot cross, and green writing.

Music

For the wedding ceremony music I would suggest the traditional Irish Music. For the Bride’s entrance you can change the song to whatever you want to make your grand entrance with. Most Irish Wedding Songs may be found at the Celtic Music Website. You should definitely consult with your musician for your event to ensure they are familiar with Irish music.

Food

For the food, you have many choices. Thank goodness for green food coloring. Whether you are having a hearty meal or just appetizers we definitely want Irish Foods. Some suggestions are Traditional Corned Beef Brisket or Corned Beef and Cabbage or Mixed Vegetables. Use Pesto Sauce to add green to the menu.

Attire

Of course you have to dress the wedding party. You could have the groom and groomsmen wear tuxedos with a green vest and bow tie. The same goes with a dark suit or regular pantsuit. For the bridesmaids they need to wear the same shade of green that you will have for your wedding. So for this wedding, our bridesmaids will wear emerald green.

Decorations

For decorations, we want lots of greenery. Ferns, Ferns, and more Ferns mixed in with Green Trees strung with white lights. Wildflowers are also very popular at Irish Weddings and often made into a head wreath for the bride to wear. Candles are also very popular with the Irish and looks great glowing against the greenery. Candles and greenery can make for a dark room so I would suggest tying white ribbons throughout the ferns and onto the candles to brighten the area just a little bit. To decorate the tables you can buy the green and white confetti or even small four leaf clovers and white rose petals to spread around the tops of the tables.

Favors

For party favors you could use green and white covered candy almonds. Some couples like to give 4-leaf clovers that you may buy online with a small message of good luck to all of their guests. My favorite are getting little pots (extra small plant pots) and filling them with the gold-foiled chocolate candies and setting them at each guests seat (it is their very own pot of gold).

Cake

Last but not least, you cake could be white with green embroidery. Let your imagination run wild.

Have fun and don’t forget to do the Irish Jig at the end of your reception!! You can get more information on having an Irish Wedding at this website.

Tips

The Traditional Irish Wedding by Bridget Haggerty (Great Book for planning an Irish Wedding, this book was written by a Mother of an Irish Bride)

Claddagh rings can be used instead of the traditional wedding rings.

Too much Green can be hard on the eyes so be sure to mix up your green with other colors such as whites and yellow to keep an easy color and non-contrasting flow for your wedding.