SOME 28 bridesmaids ruffled their pink and white taffeta dresses to perfection and lined up outside St Joseph's Catholic Church in north London for the wedding of the Irish Olympic boxer, Francis Barrett, who was married alongside two other couples yesterday.
A passer-by outside asked what all the fuss was about. "They're Irish and there's loads of them. One of them is a boxer, I think," said a man from the dry cleaners.
"But I heard that it's a triple wedding. That's a first for St Joseph's," said another woman and then she disappeared inside the church "for a better look at the brides and their dresses".
Inside, the church was a calmer scene. Ten young men sat in the front two rows and among them sat the three bridegrooms. Mr Barrett, the boxer who carried the Irish flag at the opening ceremony of the Atlanta Olympics, waited with his brother, James, and their cousin, Mr Simon O'Donnell, for their respective brides, Ms Kathleen McDonogh, Ms Mary Corcoran and Ms Mary McDonogh.
But before the three brides arrived in matching white Rolls Royces there was much pacing up the aisle and watching of clocks to be done.
All three families had requested that the media make themselves as unobtrusive as possible. But there was little chance of a harmonious compromise in the air yesterday. At the first sign of a camera two of the guests asked the photographer to leave, and within five minutes 12 of the male guests surrounded a camera crew.
The police arrived, and it was all sorted out fairly quickly. "We decided to leave them well alone," said Paul, a freelance photographer.
By 2 o'clock, with the vows exchanged, the wedding party adjourned to the garden for the formal photographs.
Father Donald Graham, who officiated, agreed that the brides were "all beautiful-looking girls, and the bridesmaids were fabulous, too. I haven't known them all very long, but I was honoured and a little choked to be here. Who knows how long it took them all to get ready, someone must have been up very early this morning putting on dresses and plaiting hair.