Thinking of getting married in Ireland? WATERLILY WEDDINGS is your ultimate planning service company that will bring your vision to reality.

Our bespoke weddings have been featured in Martha Stewart Weddings, 100 Layer Cake,  One Fab Day, and more. With over 12 years of experience, our team of wedding experts know the Emerald Isle inside and out, have close relationships with trusted vendors and talent, and are dedicated to making your dream destination wedding in Ireland even better than you imagined. Our talented team covers everything from planning elements, styling, advice, consultation, logistics, travel, and more.

Our goal is is to ensure your wedding day is flawless and the planning process is actually fun and stress-free! It takes a lot of trust to put your wedding day in someone else’s hands, and we don’t take that lightly.  That’s why our motto is: “Don’t meet expectations…exceed them.”

What Makes Us The Best

Planning a destination wedding has its own different set of challenges. We pride ourselves on our abilities to guide a couple through their wedding journey — from beginning to end — ensuring the smoothest sail possible along the way. And we have a few key tricks up our sleeves that distinguish us apart from the other wedding planners out there to be hands down the best planners for your dream destination wedding in Ireland.

We Work The Entire Island

“One huge difference between us and the rest out there is we work across all 26 counties in Ireland.  When we say we know the island coast to coast we truly mean it.  We pride ourselves on finding the perfect location for your bespoke wedding.” — Michelle, founder and lead planner.

You’ll be surprised to find that many destination wedding planners in Ireland (and in the rest of the world in fact) will be region-specific; they will specialize in one particular area and will steer you towards where they feel most comfortable planning your wedding day.  At Waterlily Weddings we’ve worked very hard these last 12 years to expand our business throughout the entire Republic, creating meaningful relationships with vendors across Ireland who will be able to execute your wedding day to your specifications.

We have bases in Dublin and western Ireland, allowing us to easily scout the perfect location to host your wedding day, stay on top of the latest talent, and easily figure out logistics to get you what you want where you want it.

Larger Team To Better Support Your Dream Wedding Day

Our main goal is to give our clients their dream wedding day.  We want you to actually ENJOY the planning process. We make sure you are EXCITED for your wedding day. And we LIVE for the exact moment you take a look at your wedding space for the first time and see all of the waiting and hard work in planning come to life.

In order to achieve this we’ve put together a team of very talented planners, organizers, visionaries, and artists who will help translate that vision in your head into a working reality on your wedding day:

• planners to help you get organized and on a realistic time table to secure vendors and venues
• historians who can advise on Irish history, traditions, & culture and offer you ideas on how you can incorporate them into your wedding day in a way that is unique and meaningful to you
• diversity among our team allows us to understand other cultures, beliefs, and traditions and help guide you on how you can merge them into your own dream wedding day in Ireland
• stylists to help you conceptualize the aesthetics of your wedding day and put the finishing touches to create a beautiful polished look
• on-day coordinators to keep your vendors on task, make sure the day runs smoothly, run interference between nosy family members so you can sit back and relax
• a highly capable, talented, and friendly TEAM that will work with you from start to finish, partnering with you to create a beautiful wedding day we both will cherish and be proud of

Compare this to other planners who are alone or just two or three. They have to juggle all of the responsibilities that go into managing a business, the day-to-day phone calls and emails. Add on that the creative process and research, keeping up on social media, and more. Our larger team enables us to focus on our clients,  give them the attention they deserve, and deliver truly bespoke weddings instead of a pre-designed wedding package.

Continental Coverage 

Our team ranges from the Pacific Northwest to Dublin. This design enables us to better serve you throughout the planning process and on the day of your wedding.

“I think having an Irish office and an American office is huge! Having a US based styling department with the ability to understand and incorporate American trends who can also have items shipped and stored in Ireland is a huge advantage.  The fact clients can talk to someone in their own time zone, get answers quickly, then meet me or Orla when they arrive in Ireland is great and really puts them at ease that every detail is being attended to at all times.”  — Sile, lead planner

Working with a planner based in Ireland exclusively puts you at the mercy of an 8 hour time difference; as the day gets closer, you may need to get a hold of your team faster with urgent questions, so having someone “on call” at any time on both continents is a huge ace in your pocket.

Anticipating the “Little Details” with Custom Planning Services 

“We offer so much more than just planning each wedding element,” Stephanie, planner and chief organizer begins. “There are so many more little details that need to be addressed within each major planning element that may not be so obvious to couples when they first start planning their wedding on their own.” Adding on to that the logistics of planning a destination wedding can get even the most organized and put-together couple scattered and scrambling.

“We can help with all of the behind-the-scenes logistics that will go into your wedding day:  bride asking if she can ship her dress home the day after the ceremony, a sister-in-law that needs babysitting services for your wedding day, couple that decided last minute to purchase their wedding bands in Ireland, how to get your guests from point A to point B just to name a few — we can handle all of the little details that will make your day perfect, stress-free, and we treat each request with the same level of urgency as finding the perfect photographer and booking your venue.” — Stephanie, planner

Our packages will be tailored specifically to suite you and your needs for your wedding day and planning process. We purposefully do not offer blanket packages to box couples in. We offer the flexibility to custom-create the right package for your needs and budget, and are flexible throughout the planning process to adjust as issues come up.

Unbeatable Work Ethic

Our team strives, working within our spheres, to deliver for you exactly what you want. We take the time to listen to what you want, research to match you with the right vendors and venue, and then continue to work with you throughout the planning process to fine tune every element of your wedding day to make sure it’s exactly what you dreamed of.

“I expect nothing less than the best from vendors and for them to deliver the best possible scenario for my clients for their wedding. I am obsessed about making that happen,” says Michelle. “Anything less than that is unacceptable.”

We help inspire you, give you the confidence to even go a little outside the box, and work with you as PARTNERS to create an incredible wedding day. We are constantly working, researching, thinking, and communicating, so excited to unveil the hard work and planning on your big day. Each of us truly live for this:  “There is no greater reward than being there with you on your wedding day and seeing that exact moment when you realize all of that hard work, dreaming, planning, and waiting is finally come to fruition and turned out even better than you could have imagined it.” 

Clear and Prompt Communication

We approach our business as a team, and that includes you as the client. “Get back to your clients as quickly as possible and with a response that is clear, to the point, and easy to comprehend,” is Stephanie’s work philosophy. “I’m careful to to do my homework first, however, to make sure I’m giving clients all of the information they need to make a good, informed decision.  I try to put myself in their shoes and think how I would want to see a reply and what would make the email/reply easier for the recipient.”

American X Factor

Sure we plan weddings in Ireland, but half of the Waterlily Weddings team are Americans!  The majority of our clients are North Americans looking to host destination weddings in Ireland. Having Americans on the team helps out in a few key ways:

• 

  being American, we can offer advice and tips on how to make your traveling easier (i.e. what to pack, currency exchange rates, how to get around Ireland, etc.)

• access to American stores, brands, artists, vendors, and more to help create that “Pinterest-worthy” wedding
• we understand American traditions, styles, and wedding structure and can help merge that on your Irish wedding day
• we know how Americans conduct business and can successfully buffer between you and European vendors
• having a representative on the team in both coasts  makes us easily accessible
• being bi-coastal gives us access to the latest and greatest on the American wedding scene
• we are in constant communication to make sure all of your needs are met and that once you touch down on Irish soil, you’ll have the best wedding and trip of your life

“For me it’s a vocation rather than a profession,” Michelle says. “I think about weddings 24/7. If I’m not working for clients, I’m constantly looking at the latest trends, venues, catching up on a colleague’s Instagram. I’m literally eating breakfast and reading the latest on Style Me Pretty and pinning my favorite ideas hours later.”  As a team we are all working within our sphere, constantly reading and looking and experiencing and absorbing what is going on in the wedding world. But what really makes us different and apart from the rest, is we take the time to make sure it works in Ireland and will work for you!

Translating Your Vision

Ireland is exquisite but what you see on Pinterest may not work with what you have picked out in Ireland.  We know what venues have to offer, what can be accomplished there, how far we can push it, realistically and logistically how we can get decor and supplies over to where you want them to be. When planning such an event on your own you’re really going in blind on a lot of these elements; let us be your eyes and ears and report back to you to make sure you’re actually getting what you want, then let’s work together to make your vision a reality.

Looking To The Future — 2018

As 2017 is drawing to a close, we’re busy planning many clients’ dream destination weddings in Ireland. We’re still finding new gorgeous venues. We’re excited to debut some incredible new talent especially on the photography scene. We’re building up our styling services and are excited to showcase in the next 6 months how incorporating a stylist in the planning process will make all the difference for your wedding day.

More Gorgeous Venues & Locations! 

We’re so excited to help plan and produce an epic wedding coming up at Ashford Castle in fall 2018. We’re busy working behind the scenes to make sure everything is planned to perfection and seriously cannot wait to share it with you sometime next fall! We’re also super excited to be working more in western Ireland — specifically Dingle and Kerry. Boasting some of the most spectacular scenery in the world, it is no wonder this part of Ireland has inspired poets, musicians, and writers for millennia. It is the ultimate destination for the adventurous heart and we’re so excited to be planning these weddings and can’t wait to share them with you in 2018! We’re also excited to work with Kilkea Castle again. Our own super talented senior planner Sile got married here and the castle has undergone some incredible renovations. We’re very much looking forward to planning here in 2018.

Styling Services

We are so excited for clients to make more use of our incredible styling services! We’ve got a few clients who are in the planning process now and working diligently with Mishy on the elements of their wedding day. It’s so exciting to work together on a vision and narrow down exquisite color palettes and little details that reflect each couple.  We have some incredible weddings coming up — one in Mount Juliet of particular note — that will be sure to inspire you.

Your Wedding Day!

CONTACT US today to get started. Check the BLOG and PORTFOLIO for more inspiration, ideas, and see some of the incredible weddings we’ve had the pleasure of planning.

Photos by  Aspect Photography, Bruno Rosa, Butterfly Photography, This Modern Love