Joyce and Gary organise wedding in 13 days during pandemic as licence to wed was close to expiring
By Hayden Moore
A FRONTLINE healthcare worker in Tallaght University Hospital managed to get some reprieve from the Covid-19 pandemic to tie the knot, in a small ceremony.
Amidst all of the uncertainty, Clinical Specialist Radiographer Joyce Kearney finally got to walk down the aisle and wed her new husband, Gary Byrne.
Joyce and Gary organised their wedding in 13 days
Originally planned for July 2020, the couple had to re-schedule their plans due to Covid-19 restrictions and then again to ensure they did not need to re-apply for their licence.
“We thought then around Christmas that there is no let up in the Covid-19 figures or restrictions,” Greenhills native Gary tells The Echo.
“Basically, there is an illness in the family as well and we knew that we just wanted to get married because you’re not guaranteed anything.
“We found out then that our wedding licence was due to expire on January 12, we would have had to re-apply for the licence and everything, so we weighed up our options and decided to go for it.”
With the deadline looming over the expiry of their licence to wed, Gary and Joyce rallied to pull it all together.
Having booked Tulfarris Hotel for the original and re-scheduled date, wedding coordinator Hanora Carberry moved quickly to accommodate their last-minute date swap, to January 9.
“Trying to organise a wedding in 13 days isn’t easy I’ll tell you, there was a bit of panic trying to get it all together,” Gary laughs.
“The team in Tulfarris where great, the wedding was the exact same as it would have been except on a smaller scale.
“The restrictions meant that there could only be a maximum of 6 for the wedding and we had initially wanted 200 people.
“The wedding would have been the first time a lot of people met from both sides but in the end, it was just ourselves and the parents there.”
Joyce and Gary instead set-up a WhatsApp group full of the planned 200 guests, who messaged each other as they watched a livestream of the wedding on YouTube.
A cause for concern for the couple was potential exposure to the coronavirus, and in turn passing it on to their parents – especially considering Joyce’s line of work.
“It was a stress for Joyce dealing with it in work, dealing with patients who had Covid, the disposal of her PPE every day and just trying to make sure nothing got contaminated.
“I was worried from the point of view that is she alright and how she is dealing with it all.
“With the wedding as well, we were concerned about giving it to our parents.
“So, we were really trying to limit everything.
He added: “We were delighted to be able to get it done in the end and to have people so positive about it, saying thanks to us for involving them with the stream and everything it was great.”
Gary and Joyce met in the Black Forge Inn in Crumlin for their “first proper date” back in 2015.
“We clicked at the start and we mentioned this in our vows, we took a slight sabbatical in the middle but that only made us realise how much we wanted to be together,” says the 41-year-old.
Following the wedding, in line with restrictions around travel, the newly-wed couple had a honeymoon at their home in Citywest, making different activities each night.
Gary added: “I feel like we really made the best of the wedding and made the best of the honeymoon at home.”
By subscribing to The Echo you are supporting your local newspaper Click Here: Echo Online.
