Our Wedding Story: A magical start to an engagement

John Barry proposed to Lee McSweeney at a Harry Potter theme park in Florida

Lee (28), a management consultant at Accenture, and John (28), who works in group manufacturing at Bank of Ireland, met while studying for their Leaving Certs in Bruce College, Cork where they are both from.

Their first date, 12 years ago, was to see Jeepers Creepers 2 in the cinema. "We had to be dropped and collected as we weren't old enough to drive ourselves," remembers Lee.

In August 2013, during a family holiday in Orlando, Florida, John disappeared with Lee’s father, also John, in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

“They came back 20 minutes later, everything arranged . . . the next thing I knew the rest of our group had disappeared and we were walking through the emptying park on our own and John proposed. We arrived back up to a restaurant where all the family were waiting to celebrate.”

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On a bright, sunny first day of August 2015 (thanks to “all the Children of Prague being left out the night before”) Lee and John were married at the Church of the Incarnation in Frankfield, Cork during which Maria Fitzgerald (weddingsinger.ie) sang.

Mother of the bride is Lorna McSweeney and John’s mother is Frances Barry.

All the flowers in the church and at the reception at Fota Island Resort were the work of the groom’s sister Sharon Barry of Fox Flowers. The Bentley Boys were the wedding band. Lee’s dress was by Pronovias and she bought it in Marbella, Spain.

A week after the wedding, John broke his leg, so the newlyweds decided to postpone their South American honeymoon until January. They mini-mooned in Rome and Tuscany for a week.

Photographs: Fine Art Weddings fineartweddingsireland.com

Sarah Geraghty

Sarah Geraghty

Sarah Geraghty is a contributor to The Irish Times