A Candlelit Wedding in Dublin: Celebrating Love Across Continents
Steven & Felipe
Some ceremonies stay with you long after the last candle has been blown out…
Not because they're the biggest, or the most extravagant, but because they remind you what a wedding ceremony is really for. It's an opportunity to stop for a moment, gather the people who matter most, and say the things that are so often lost amongst the busyness of everyday life.
Steven and Felipe's ceremony was exactly that.
Although they'd legally married two years earlier in New York, they knew that wasn't the moment they wanted to celebrate with the people closest to them. Their big wedding reception, surrounded by family and friends in Brazil, is still a couple of years away, but they didn't want to wait until then to mark this chapter of their story.
Instead, they invited a small group of loved ones to Dublin for an intimate, candlelit celebrant-led ceremony. It was romantic without feeling overly formal, elegant without ever becoming stiff, and filled with the kind of warmth that only comes when everyone in the room genuinely knows and loves the couple standing in front of them.
As someone who's had the privilege of knowing Steven for many years, being asked to lead that ceremony was an enormous honour.
What struck me most while writing it was just how much intention sits at the heart of their relationship.
Both have dedicated their careers to improving the lives of others. Felipe is currently undertaking an extraordinary cancer research placement at one of Manhattan's leading research centres on the Upper East Side, while Steven is a highly respected sarcoma pathologist based in Cork. Somewhere amongst all of that, he's also taught himself fluent Portuguese and achieved Grade 8 piano, because apparently groundbreaking medicine wasn't quite enough to be getting on with.
It would have been easy for their careers to pull them in different directions.
In many ways, they have.
For now, they find themselves living in different countries, navigating the realities of long-distance while pursuing work they're both deeply passionate about. But listening to them talk about it, you realise they don't see distance as something that's happening to them. They see it as something they're moving through together.
There was something incredibly grounding about that.
Neither of them knows exactly where they'll eventually settle. Ireland, Brazil, New York... perhaps somewhere else entirely. That chapter hasn't been written yet. But what they have created is a relationship where "home" isn't defined by geography. It's built through theatre trips in whichever city they're reunited in, weekends exploring somewhere new, long gym sessions, music festivals, dinner parties with friends and making a conscious decision, again and again, to put their relationship at the centre of everything else.
I think that's something many couples can relate to, whether they're living five thousand miles apart or five minutes down the road.
Life rarely unfolds exactly as we imagine it will.
Careers evolve. Families grow. Opportunities appear in unexpected places. Plans change.
Love isn't really about standing still while everything around you stays the same. It's about choosing one another as life keeps moving.
Their ceremony reflected that beautifully.
There was candlelight, laughter and more than a few tears, but there was also a wonderful sense of calm. Nobody was rushing towards the next part of the day. Nobody was distracted by timelines or logistics. For an hour or so, everything else faded into the background while they simply celebrated the life they'd already built together, and the one they were still creating.
Space to celebrate not just your wedding day, but everything that's happened since the day you first met.
That's one of the reasons I love celebrant-led ceremonies so much.
They create space to tell your story properly and acknowledge the people who've shaped your journey.
If you're wondering how a celebrant ceremony differs from a registrar-led ceremony, I've written a guide on Celebrant vs Registrar: What's the Difference? that explains why so many couples are choosing to separate the legal paperwork from the meaningful part of the day.
And if you're curious about how a celebrant ceremony actually flows, you'll find more in What Happens in a Celebrant Wedding Ceremony?
The weekend ended in the most fitting way imaginable: dancing beneath the trees outside Dublin to Florence + The Machine, surrounded by the people who had travelled from different corners of the world to celebrate them.
It felt incredibly joyful, free, a little bit wild. But, completely authentic.
Much like Steven and Felipe themselves.
Planning your own celebrant-led wedding?
Whether you're bringing everyone together for an intimate celebration or planning something on a much bigger scale, a celebrant-led ceremony gives you the freedom to tell your story in a way that feels genuinely personal.
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Or, if you're ready to start creating your own ceremony, you can find out more about my wedding celebrant ceremonies and we can start writing your love story together.
