Although a relatively small event, with 30 guests, Claire Nolan and John Hayden's wedding at St Colmcille's Church in Swords, Co Dublin, was full of poignant connections to the past. On the day of their wedding – December 27th – John's parents, John and Breda Hayden, were celebrating their 31st wedding anniversary, and the bride's parents, Paul and Bernardine Nolan, had spent their
wedding night in the same hotel – the Grand Hotel in Malahide.
The "piece of silver" given to the couple was the same coin used by John's grandmother on her wedding day. Although the day was bitterly cold, they decided to leave the top down on the old Regent wedding car that drove them from the church to Malahide. "It was a lovely feeling driving through Swords with people waving and wishing us luck," said Claire. She is delighted they opted for a small wedding – "A big wedding just wouldn't have been us, to be honest, so it was never on the cards.
Because it was such an intimate group, we were both really relaxed on the day and just enjoyed it." An additional 150 guests were invited to the afters of the wedding that evening.
Claire and John met at John's 18th birthday party, when Claire was just 16 and still at school. In the intervening 10 years they have only really been apart once, when Claire went travelling to
Australia for a year. "John is heavily involved in Taekwondo and was asked around that time to become Leinster coach. It was an opportunity he couldn't turn down and he decided to stay at
home. We got through the year, though, and came back stronger than ever."
Claire trained as a nurse at the Mater Hospital and since returning from Australia she has been working as an agency nurse, mostly at the Mater. John is an electrician and works in Beaumont Hospital. He proposed on Christmas morning 2007, their first Christmas in their new home in Kinsealy. The wedding took place just over a year later. The time of the year was perfect, but the week itself was frenetic, with Christmas falling just two days before the wedding. The couple did,
however, find the time to attend two concerts at the new 02 arena over Christmas – Coldplay and Kings of Leon. Their honeymoon took them to Tanzania and Zanzibar for a two-week safari. "We
had a few days to relax afterwards as we didn't go on the honeymoon until January 2nd. We had the New Year to spend with friends, which was lovely."
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