Tinakilly Wedding Photographer: Laura and James, Co. Wicklow
It rained all morning. It rained on the car to the church. It rained on Laura as she ran through the gates at Kilquade in her dress. It rained through the ceremony and on everyone coming out of the church. Then the car turned in at Tinakilly House and it stopped.
Not a gap in the clouds. It stopped. And it stayed stopped for the two big family photographs, the couple pictures, the drinks reception and the speeches, and it started again the minute everyone sat down to dinner and did not let up for the rest of the night. I have been a wedding photographer for a long time and I am not sure I have seen the weather behave itself that precisely.
I was Laura and James's Tinakilly wedding photographer on Saturday 29 August 2026. A big family wedding, 170 guests, a church ceremony at St Patrick's in Kilquade and everything else at Tinakilly House outside Rathnew in Co. Wicklow. Laura got ready in the house, which meant the whole day happened inside twenty minutes of road, and I got to spend most of it watching.
The morning at Tinakilly
Someone had put a Child of Prague on the windowsill outside the bridal suite. Tinakilly has two of them, I am told, one with his head on and one without, and I would not like to guess which one did the work. Either way, the tradition held.
Inside, hair went in, a hairdryer got pointed at the dress, and Laura's dad Michael arrived at the door with the flowers. Laura's aunt made them, all white with eucalyptus and a long trailing ribbon, and they were the first thing anyone in the room stopped talking for.
Laura's mum Paula was in fuchsia pink with a fascinator, Laura Harrington, Anneliese and Sarah in olive green satin, and there was a lot of laughing at things I did not catch. Laura is one of those brides who laughs with her whole face, which makes my job very easy and also means half this gallery is her laughing.
Kilquade in the rain
James, Aodhán, Jamie and Stephen were in the church early in navy suits and pale green ties, with two small blond page boys, Peter and James Moulton, in bow ties who took the whole thing very seriously and then ran the length of the aisle when nobody was looking.
Laura came in a dark red vintage car with her dad. The rain was properly at it by then. One shoe came out of the car door, then Laura came out after it, gathered the dress up and ran through the church gates. The bridesmaids followed under umbrellas. Somebody left a tartan umbrella on a chair at the back of the church and it stayed there through the whole ceremony like a guest.
Father Michael Shiel married them. He is a friend of the family, he is eighty eight, and he was the warmest and wittiest celebrant I have stood beside in a long while. The page boys brought the rings up together. Laura's sister Anneliese played the violin with a friend on guitar, which I could tell meant a great deal to both of them. A baby in the pews waved at the altar and Laura laughed her way through most of her own vows.
After dinner Father Shiel came over to me and said he hoped I had got his good side. I told him I had got both of his good sides. He said that was grand as long as I had not got his backside. Eighty eight.
The dry spell
Laura and James did not want a long list of family photographs. They wanted two, one for each side, and each side turned out to be somewhere between thirty and forty people. We lined them up in front of the house in the first dry air of the day. Then we took ten minutes in the walled garden and on the front steps for the two of them, and we were back before the drinks had gone flat.
The drinks reception stayed dry. AB, the coordinator at Tinakilly, was quietly talking to me about moving the speeches out onto the grass. The gardens there are made for exactly that, low box hedges and stone urns and the house behind. It was close.
James's uncle Paddy was the star of the drinks reception. He was in a wheelchair with a custom wheel cover, he was in about half the photographs I took on the lawn, and he got a mention in the speeches later that got one of the biggest cheers of the day.
Ten minutes for the two of them
The garden at Tinakilly is a proper walled garden, symmetrical and green with white urns at the top of the steps. We walked, that was about it. Then the clear umbrella came out for a few frames on the front steps, not because it was raining but because it had rained on everything else and it felt right. I am a documentary wedding photographer and I keep this part short on purpose. Laura and James were happier in a crowd.
Speeches on the staircase
This is the part of the day I would show anyone thinking about Tinakilly.
The speeches happened before dinner, in the hall, with the speakers on the red carpeted staircase and 170 people packed into the hall below and up along the landing. Aodhán, the best man, ran it. James's dad John spoke first, then Michael, then Paula.
Everyone in James's family is a lawyer or a solicitor. His dad, his grandfather, his uncles, James himself. It came up more than once. It also meant James's dad delivered one of the most polished, funny, warm speeches I have heard from a father of the groom, full of stories, with the timing of a man used to a room. James had his head in his hand for a good stretch of it. Laura laughed at all of it.
When they were done I climbed the stairs and photographed the whole hall from the top, every face looking up.
Dinner in the marquee and the rain coming back
Everyone crossed to the marquee under fairy lights and swagged ceilings, the napkins went up in the air as Laura and James came in, and then the rain returned and did not stop. Nobody minded. The bridesmaids spoke, then Laura took the microphone herself and James sat and looked at her the way he had been looking at her since the church. The cake was on a slice of log.
Timing speeches before the meal is something I talk about in my wedding day timeline guide, and this was a good argument for it. The hall speeches gave everyone a reason to be in one room together while it was dry, and the dinner speeches were short and personal.
Dancing indoors
Tinakilly is known for its outdoor dance under the trees. It was too wet for it, so Panoramics set up inside and Laura and James had the checkerboard floor moving within two songs. Laura danced with her dad. One of the page boys ended up flat on his back in the middle of the floor. Paddy was in the thick of it, laughing.
Thank you
Laura and James, thank you. You were a pleasure to be around from the first email to the last dance, and you got the one dry spell of the day exactly when you needed it.
If you are getting married in Co. Wicklow and looking for a Tinakilly wedding photographer who will stand at the back and let the day happen, I have written a guide to Wicklow wedding venues and you can get in touch here. I live in Dún Laoghaire, so Rathnew is on my doorstep.