What do you think?
A wedding planner has said that a priest in Wicklow confronted her before a wedding last weekend and threatened to cancel the ceremony unless the decorations were moved from the church.
Edel Rooney, a wedding planner with Vintage Affair, said that she had worked three previous weddings in the same church and never had any problems, but in this instance, the priest had had enough.
Speaking with Joe Duffy on Liveline, she said the priest insisted it was a health and safety issue and said they had to be removed from the church. Rooney removed all the decorations, except for the six cherry blossom trees along the aisle.
The battery-powered lanterns and the bride and groom’s chairs were also replaced with two chairs from the church.
Rooney said the original decorations looked like the example provided in the image below.
Edel Cooney is a wedding planner. She's telling @joeliveline that one of her weddings in Co. Wicklow was delayed by an hour when the priest demanded her decorations were removed from the church. The decorations looked something like the example below #Liveline pic.twitter.com/0lJX5lwQXh
— Liveline (@rteliveline) October 4, 2018
The groom, Dave, got in touch with Liveline while on his honeymoon to explain what happened.
“I was getting a few photos with family outside when my phone started ringing,” he said. “There was a voicemail from the priest and it was just carnage. I said to my two brothers, ‘we need to go to the church’.
“The first thing I saw was Edel in tears, so I said ‘don’t worry about it’.
“The priest made a bee line for me as we walked in the gates. I said ‘what’s the issue?’ and he said it was totally unacceptable, that this wasn’t a big party.”
Both Dave and his wife Jennifer both said the priest performed a lovely ceremony following the initial disagreement.
However, many of the callers to the show and people who commented on social media were on the priest’s side in this debate.
While one caller named Jennifer Duffy said the church doesn’t belong to the priest, it belongs to the people and the couple should have been allowed to decorate it how they wanted, others disagreed.
I think that there should be respect for the church if you want to get married in the church. The wedding planner could probably have handled this better by discussing things with the priest prior to the wedding.
— KarenB (@KarenB71747941) October 4, 2018
I don’t agree with the way the Priest spoke to her The trees are lovely but outside would have been better. Why didn’t she get married in a Hotel & have a blessing by the priest later. It is a Church & should be respected as a Holy place.
— MJ (@1939Mj) October 4, 2018
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