Tag: Outdoor Wedding Venue

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Wedding Photographs at Dunmore House Hotel

wedding photographs at dunmore house hotel, Dermot Sullivan, Award Winning Irish Wedding Photographer, Cork, Kerry, Reviews, Prices, Packages, Albums,

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A bride and groom hold hands overlooking the sea after their outdoor wedding ceremony at Dunmore House Hotel in Cork, Ireland

Full disclosure, Dunmore House Hotel, just outside Clonakilty Town, is the nearest hotel to where I live, but despite any local bias, I can say with total honesty that it is a fantastic venue for indoor and outdoor wedding celebrations and civil ceremonies.

From a photographers point of view, Dunmore House Hotel ticks all the boxes. It is a four star family run hotel with a great reputation for friendliness and service and it has received many awards, including the title of Wedding Venue Of The Year.

But for me, what makes Dunmore House such a great wedding venue is the position of the hotel overlooking the ocean and the access to lots of other great photographic locations within a 10 minute drive. 

Firstly, you have a great selection of Churches to choose from for your wedding ceremony. Clonakilty parish church is huge and ornate, almost like a cathedral, and it has beautiful gold mosaic on the altar. Darrara church is a little further away, just outside the village of Ring. Darrara is the perfect size for 150 – 250 guests and has a red altar which adds a dramatic effect to the ceremony. On the other side of Clonakilty, the churches of  Ardfield and Rathbarry, similar in size to Darrara and nearer the beaches and forestry of the area.

Clonakilty town itself is a great wedding photography location, with traditional pubs, quaint shop fronts, an interesting Georgian square, a tiny converted church and multi coloured doors. If the weather is bad, I always bring my wedding parties to Clonakilty Town photographs

Duneen Strand, less than 5 minutes drive from Dunmore House, is another great location. There is something about the way the beach faces that gives it lots of shelter from the wind and lots of sunshine. It isn’t such a popular beach with tourists so even in the height of summer, you can get plenty of wide open space.

There is also a tiny headland overlooking the ocean directly opposite Dunmore House. It can be a bit of a effort to get down to it in summer as the path can get overgrown, but it can really be worth it if you get a dramatic sky as a background.

Have a look through the Dunmore House Clonakilty Wedding Photos below to get an idea of what I am talking about.

Give me a call or drop me an email if you want any information about wedding photography anywhere in Cork or Kerry.

Click here to see my Best of 2022 Wedding Photographs

Click here to see my Winter Weddings in Ireland Blogpost

Wedding Photographs at Dunmore House Hotel

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Fernhill House Hotel Wedding Photographs

Fernhill House Hotel Clonakilty Cork Wedding Photographs
Marriage Ceremony, Dermot Sullivan, Best Irish Wedding Photographer, Cork, Killarney, Kerry, Ireland, photos, photography, prices, packages, reviews,

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Fernhill House Hotel and Gardens in Clonakilty is a very special, unique and multi-award winning wedding venue. It is one of my all-time favourite’s and I have photographed well over 50 weddings there.

Here is a selection of Fernhill House Hotel Wedding Photographs I shot between 2019 and 2022.

Fernhill House Hotel is run by the 4th generation of the O’Neill family and is recognized in the industry as one of the most popular and successful indoor and outdoor wedding venues in Cork.

Over the past 10 years, they have focused on expanding their wedding business by creating a series of beautiful gardens in what used to be a pitch and putt course on their grounds.

The gardens feature a unique civil wedding ceremony area for outdoor weddings, and a huge permanent marquee for humanist and spiritualist weddings when the weather won’t allow an outdoor ceremony. 

If you have a church wedding and arrive at the hotel afterwards, or if you have your ceremony at the hotel, your drinks reception is held in the marquee, which allows your guests to mingle and explore the gardens with a drink in their hand.

The gardens are designed to have plenty of locations for fabulous wedding photographs. From the formal family portraits to the wedding party shots and the bride and groom’s location shoot, there are lots of options for every season. 

There is also space and fantastic light to allow for great candid and reportage shots.

The dining room is in the main hotel building, and Michael Sr. loves to ferry the guests up and down in his super sized golf buggy.

Sometimes brides like to get ready at the hotel on the morning of their wedding, especially if they are having their wedding ceremony on the grounds. 

The Woodfield Room in the main hotel is perfect and private for a bride and her bridesmaids to have their hair and makeup done and get ready for the day.

A unique feature of weddings at Fernhill House Hotel, and the icing on the cake for me, is the potential for a night shoot in the gardens after the speeches and dinner are over. 

The garden structures, like the bridge, the summer house and the moon gates make fantastic backdrops for sparkler shoots and romantic backlight photographs.

So, if you are looking for a venue that offers every option available to make your wedding day perfect, Fernhill House Hotel is well worth a visit.

Click here to see my Best of 2022 Wedding Photographs

Click here to see my Winter Weddings in Ireland Blogpost

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Ballymaloe Wedding

Ballymaloe Grainstore Wedding East Cork Venue dermot sullivan best irish wedding photographer

Ballymaloe House, the East Cork restaurant and wedding venue is arguably the birthplace of modern Irish cooking. 

There are other country houses in Ireland that host weddings, for me, Ballymaloe House, with it’s range of authentic historic buildings, it’s formal and wild landscapes, it’s super professional staff, not to mention it’s award winning food, is probably the best venue of it’s kind in the country

I was lucky to have the opportunity to photograph two weddings there this year, one in July and one in September. On both occasions, the house, the walled gardens and the Grainstore dining room provided an upmarket and classic backdrop for our photographs.

For Siobhan and Jamie’s wedding in July, Siobhan and her family got ready at Ballymaloe House, which made the morning very relaxed for everybody. 

The light coming through the trees into the little private courtyard outside Siobhan’s room was magical and I did all the details shots and the morning family shots there. 

We went to the Honan Chapel in UCC for Siobhan’s and Jamie’s ceremony and afterwards they whizzed back to Ballymaloe in an yellow open top MG. We used the impressive main driveway for photos and there was a beautiful field of barley for some shots in the bright summer sunshine.

They drove up to the front of the house in great style to be greeted by their guests for the drinks reception We did our formal family photographs on the front lawn and when the bell was rung for dinner we went to the walled garden for some romantic photographs.

After dinner, we went down to the ponds just as the light was falling, for some low light and off camera flash photographs. Then, just before their first dance, we used the front of the house for some creative backlit photographs. 

Pamela and Ed also had a church ceremony for their wedding in September. Afterwards, we went to Pamela’s parents garden to do our formal family photographs and then on to Ballymaloe House.

Pamela and Ed travelled in a vintage Rolls Royce and once again, the driveway provided a timeless location for their photographs. 

During the drinks reception, we took a walk across to the Ballymaloe Grainstore, where the wedding dinner would be served. I always recommend that couples take a look at their dining room before their guests come in and sit down, and this dining room was well worth seeing. 

As you can see from the photographs, the team at Ballymaloe had done a beautiful job on the layout, which four long dining tables stretching the length of the room and the top table at right angles to everyone. This layout would be perfect for the surprise entertainment that was lined up for after the main course…

Before we knew it, it was time for the dinner bell, so while the guests were being seated, I did some shots with the wedding party in the front room of the main house and then it was speeches and dinner and “Mario” the fake waiter who is actually a fantastic opera singer. He got the crowd singing and waving their napkins like crazy!!

I feel that I have only scratched the surface of the photographic potential of Ballymaloe House and I can’t wait to come back to shoot more weddings here.

Click here to see my best of 2019 wedding photographs

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Kinsale Hotel & Spa Weddings

Kinsale Hotel and Spa Weddings

Kinsale Hotel & Spa Weddings

I have been a wedding photographer for so long that the Kinsale Hotel and Spa has had three different names since I started shooting weddings there. I knew it first as The Carlton, then it changed to The MacDonald, a name that never really caught on with the public and was the cause of lots of jokes about drive thru wedding and happy meals! 

Finally, it became The Kinsale Hotel and Spa, which is the perfect name really. I’m just surprised that none of the older hotels in the area decided to name themselves after their historic town first.

I shoot a lot of weddings at the Kinsale Hotel, and I’m flattered that they use several of my wedding photographs in their advertising. It has everything in place that you need for your ceremony, your reception and your guests. 

There are holiday houses tucked away in the grounds where the grooms party can get ready if necessary. The Bridal Suite is huge and light filled, which is perfect for bridal preparations and pre-ceremony photographs.

There are options for Civil / Humanist / Spiritualist wedding ceremonies inside and on the grounds of the hotel. There are also lots of great wedding photography locations in and around the hotel too, with tree lined pathways, futuristic overhead walkways and a traditional bridge and waterfall. There are extensive views over the countryside and out into the bay from the terrace at the back of the hotel and a huge glass atrium in the centre of the hotel where you can hold your drinks reception.

If you have a church ceremony and are travelling to the Kinsale Hotel afterwards, there are some fantastic photography locations around the town that you can stop at for a location shoot with your wedding party.

There is a beach, two piers with views of yachts in the harbour, extensive sea views from viewing points, fantastic atmospheric pubs and Charles Fort, which is an impressive and very photogenic military fort, dating from 1680, which is about 5 minutes drive from the hotel.

All in all, if you are planning a church ceremony within a 45 minute drive of Kinsale or a civil ceremony at a venue with multiple options for your day, take a look at The Kinsale Hotel and Spa.

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Check out some of my favourite wedding photographs from 2019

Kinsale Hotel & Spa Weddings