Irish Wedding Traditions: Using Your Irish Heritage to Create the Perfect Wedding

This is truly one of the most well-written and all-inclusive books on the topic of Irish weddings. (And I've seen most of them!) When my wife and I first discussed the idea of an Irish wedding, I must admit I expected green beer and kissing of blarney stones. I really didn't expect to have any input or interest in the plans at all. My wife's purchase of this book, while not making me an expert on celtic traditions, has given me a new vantage of the elegant and classic themes present in Irish ceremonies. This beautiful book has maintained its place at the top of our collection, and will remain there for years to come--both as a reminder of our ceremony and as an aesthetically attractive addition to our coffee table.

This book has many great ideas. I am just planning my wedding now, and I only have 2 months to go. I like the ideas for theme/decorating because several choices are provided, and all are simple and not too costly. I especially like the section on Irish flowers. It includes the meaning of each type of flower. And wearing an old pair of shoes on your wedding day is lucky. How great (and smart)!

I very recently got married. I wanted to do something to add a spark of tradition to our wedding and reception: both my husband and I are are nondenominational so it couldn't be something religious. I am part Irish, but because my fraternal grandmother was ashamed of being Irish, she would lie and say we were from Scotland, we never embraced our Irish heritage. While wanting to add something special to our wedding, I went to the bookstore to see if there was anything that could help and I found "Irish Wedding Traditions". It was so great for me because I didn't know about any of the Irish Traditions--weddings or otherwise. She had some great ideas, it was very simple read, and most importantly, very simple to incorporate into our wedding to add charm and warmth. What our guests commented on most was the 'Celtic Loving Cup Ceremony'--we didn't use it as a part of our ceremony, we had some good friends read it for us before we all sat down to dinner. It was a great way to unite all of us again after the cocktail reception and set a tone for the toasts to come. We also offered some very tastey Irish champagne cocktails at the bar (recipes in the book). We put Irish emblems on our place cards that Ms. McMahon-Lichte suggests. It was a perfect book for me to get because I didn't have much time left, but I still felt something was missing from our wedding plans. This book helped me to come up with some finishing touches that were inexpensive and spoke of our lost heritage. I think my grandmother would have been proud at last.

A beautifully written, informative yet whimsical book full of Irish wedding traditions and the Irish lore behind them. I only wish I'd had it when my husband and I were creating our wedding ceremony... It's a lovely looking book with wonderful illustrations on linen pages. A great gift for anyone planning a wedding, or anyone simply interested in all things Irish. (I'm already married and I bought it for myself!)