Charming Segrave Barns

inside view of barn in Segarve barns
Segrave Barns – the interior of the Barn

I would like to introduce you to Segrave Barns Dunany Wedding. A stunning and unique wedding barn venue on the east coast of Ireland that you can hire exclusively for your own wedding. It’s actually three different barns there and every single one has its own charm.

WILLOW BARN -Willow Barn is an intimate, spacious barn perfect for weddings catered to ranging from 50 to 250 guests with great success For concerts the numbers can increase to 300 guests. With Dunany Pint bar at the side creating a cosy atmospheric Wedding Venue. HOLLY BARN can be used as a ceremony room and drinks reception. ASH TREE BARN is most of the time used by brides for getting ready on wedding morning where we all make-up artists, photographers, videographers and hairdressers start the morning with a cup of coffee:)

I come to Segrave Barns in the morning to photograph the marriage of Ann-Marie and Eoin. Straight on when I met them, you feel that the wedding is going to be relaxed and more like a party than a posh celebration. And this is what I like when it comes to weddings- PARTY. Great atmosphere created by amazing people around. These guys know what they want and they create something extraordinary.

Wedding Ceremony

Segrave Barns, of course, there is the option outdoor. There are two or more options where you can have a ceremony in Segrave Barns. Amazing outdoor space in wood with fairy lights, wooden benches and an arch build from wooden bells which look so impressive and is a perfect fit into woodland. The drink reception is also a nice place. You have a long old barn where extra friendly staff serves all drinks and food. There is also an outdoor area in Sagrave Barns with seats etc. It’s a kind of a DIY place so you can decorate it with your own choice I think.

Barn – Oh !! This is a real barn, check how amazing it looks inside with big wooden doors and beams. The food- I have been to two different weddings there this year both times it was a great experience just delicious and it’s quite an important factor when you choose a wedding venue!

The place is run by two great people Eugene and John. I can ensure you they are professional and so easygoing at the same time, the best mix. I will definitely back to Segrave Barns for more weddings, and I know they will be as special as the two others I shoot there in 2018. So let’s check those photographs below to see Segrave Barn below.

Eco wedding tips

Are you very conscious of our environmental impact and want to make sure not to have too much waste? We ordered personalized bamboo straws for our gin bar that also acted as favours. We’re still getting pictures of our guests reusing them which is really special. We had reusable hankies for our napkins (which the staff collected up for us and we’re reusing at home… yes all 120 of them!!) We reused a pom-pom wall hanging that I had made for my sister’s wedding 2 years before as our backdrop for the ceremony in the woods. Pom-pom confetti – that’s not only really fun but you can pick it up and reuse it again. Our caterer was also great at helping in any way he could (no butter in small packets etc.,).

A wedding website is a good idea. You will be able to cut down not only our environmental impact but cost also which is a win-win. I gifted the terrariums that I had bought for the table centrepieces to the family and the bridal party. Have you seen bridesmaid’s hoops? Made with flowers that would dry well so they doubled up as a wall hanging. The week following the wedding I took apart my bouquet and added it to the large dreamcatcher we had for the wedding and it has dried beautifully! 

Real Wedding

What was important to you about your wedding – what were your priorities from the beginning?

I’m very conscious of our environmental impact and wanted to make sure we didn’t have too much waste. We ordered personalized bamboo straws for our gin bar that also acted as favours. We’re still getting pictures of our guests reusing them which is really special. We had reusable hankies for our napkins (which the staff collected up for us and we’re reusing at home… yes all 120 of them!!)

We reused a pom wall hanging that I had made for my sister’s wedding 2 years before as our backdrop for the ceremony in the woods. We used confetti that’s not only really fun but was picked up and reused again in my classroom (I essentially just borrowed them from my art supplies for the day!)

Our caterer was also great at helping in any way he could (no butter in small packets etc.,) We decided on creating a wedding website (we found ‘the knot’ website really easy to use!) and this cut down on not only our environmental impact but cost also which was a win-win for us. We also tried to not be left with lots of pointless decorations after the wedding.

I gifted the terrariums that I had bought for the table centrepieces to the family and the bridal party. The bridesmaid’s hoops were made with flowers that would dry well so they doubled up as a wall hanging. The week following the wedding I took apart my bouquet and added it to the large dreamcatcher we had for the wedding and it has dried beautifully! 

What made your venue Segrave Barns “the one”? 

We’re not sure who would see the venue and NOT go for it to be honest! Everything about it was just exactly what we were looking for in a venue, it suited us both down to the ground. We loved the outdoor ceremony area, the lights in the woods and of course that stunning Segrave Barns! It really ticked more boxes than we could have imagined possible.

On top of that, the owners John and Eugene are two of the nicest people you could meet. They have a really calming effect that you couldn’t help but be relaxed around them which is really great. They are super organised and everything ran extremely efficiently before and on the day. John and Eugene are also extremely talented with Eugene giving an amazing singing chef performance which was out of this world and John arranging the flowers for the Segrave Barns.

All I had to do was give him the terrariums and some crystals I wanted to be included and with the flowers, he did an amazing job!! The place is also really stunning without anything added to it which was important to me as I could take on too much work and plan too much DIY which would have been stressful for us all! 

It also helped that we had the venue to ourselves for three days. It meant everything was relaxed and we could set up at our own pace the night before. My bridesmaids and mam and dad helped so much with setting everything up the night before and we had a lovely relaxing sound bath (meditation with healing instruments!) which helped us relax! The second day was also a great party with giant games, a pizza truck, our own little bar and plenty of leftover drinks! Perfect! 

What made the day really special and personal to you? (Things you included, unusual elements, things that people made or did for you, etc.)

We loved working on planning our ceremony in Segrave Barns to make it really special. We didn’t want anything in there just for the sake of it (except for the legal stuff obviously!) We opted for a spiritualist ceremony which fitted us the most.

We had family members read some lovely readings and poems, an alpaca ring bearer and we planted an oak tree on the grounds of Segrave Barns which was really special. I picked some of my favourite children’s storybooks as readings which were really lovely to hear. My nephew read ‘Mr. Men: Love’ by Roger Hargreaves, my friend Ailbhe read ‘Guess How Much I Love You’ by Sam McBratney and my great pal and work colleague John read ‘Oh The Places You’ll Go!’ by my favourite author, Dr Seuss!

Wedding Ceremony Music

The ceremony music was also out of this world, The Gospel Project are insanely talented and was great to deal with. We also borrowed some percussion instruments from my school so everyone could play along during the ceremony. Two very talented children in my class made a sign for the box of instruments too which was really special. I hand-painted two tambourines for us on the day and they were great fun to have and use. 

I love DIY so I knew I wanted to incorporate that into the wedding. I set up ‘dreamcatcher parties’ with our families and some friends. I had all the supplies and taught them how to make dreamcatchers…

I added a label with their name and these decorated the woods. Everyone has their dreamcatcher back now which means we’re not left with 40 dreamcatchers, people learned a new skill and also have something to remember the day by!! I also made a giant dreamcatcher that we had in the woods with strings for people to add to our dreamcatcher and leave us good wishes. I made macrame chair backs for the bride and groom’s chairs. I also hand-painted my faux leather jacket with a kit I got online. 

We loved having items made by our friends and family and have lots of talented friends and family who were so good to give up their time and effort to make stuff for us. My friend Aoife made us crotchet versions of myself and Eoin which we had on the cake table. My mam made us a gorgeous crotchet tablecloth for the cake table too. We included lots of the lovely presents and frames that people had bought for us after the engagement and in the run-up to the wedding in the small sitting room area of the barn… we wanted it to mimic our own sitting room at home.

Having my sister design and make my dress was just so special. The time and effort she put in were out of this world. She made sure it was unique, and comfortable and suited me down to a T. It had removable sleeves and a skirt so it was great for dancing in later on. She added in lots of special things like my communion medal, rose quartz crystals and a piece of her own wedding dress. She is amazingly talented and so generous with her time and help that she really was the best support for the wedding. 

What advice would you give to other couples planning their day?

Write down some things that are important to you and stick with that! I was finding it very hard to pick a colour scheme in the beginning because I thought that’s what you had to do… but we ended up not having one. Do things your way and relax on the big day. You’ll be so filled with love on the day that the little things don’t matter! 

And if anyone is still on the lookout for any vendors, I’d highly, HIGHLY recommend anyone mentioned here. It makes such a difference to work with people who are professional but also really genuine. I wasn’t very stressed leading up to the big day and I think being in contact with amazing vendors who knew what they were doing and had the same values as us was such a great help.

If you have any children or pets that feature a lot in your wedding images feel free to let us know who they are if you don’t mind them being mentioned if we use their photo.

Our gorgeous French Bulldog Freddie came to the ceremony thanks to some good friends who were kind enough to collect him on the day and bring him back to his minder after. We are so happy this worked out and wouldn’t have it any other way (even if I was told 10 minutes before the ceremony that Freddie could spook the Alpaca during the ceremony!)

My gorgeous niece and two nephews did an amazing job and kept the atmosphere relaxed and fun all day. My nephew, Ryan, who had the role of ‘General Manager’ on the day (and was in charge of complaints haha), did a great job as a reader. Cora and Conor were starring on the day, you couldn’t help but smile looking at them having so much fun and dancing!

Segrave Barns website: www.segravebarns.ie/