Bryan & Kerry's Wedding
The new year has only just begun, but the wedding of the year may already have taken place – last Saturday’s marriage of Westlife pin-up Bryan McFadden to pop star and TV presenter Kerry Katona.
The bride’s brief to the wedding experts who helped to create her big day was to ‘think fairytale’. And fairytale it most certainly was – a magical, intimate celebration in the tiny church of the Immaculate Conception in Rathfeigh, County Meath, followed by a party to end all parties (this is Ireland, after all) at historic Slane Castle, which is famous for it’s music-world links.
The theme couldn’t have been more appropriate, for life really has been a fairytale for the couple, both 21, these last three years. Plucked from the obscurity – Kerry had been on the dole before joining girl band, Atomic Kitten, Bryan was a bouncer at McDonalds and had worked as a bingo caller before his Westlife audition – they each rose to the top of the pop charts before falling deeply in love and embarking on what was initially a secret romance.
But for both, the wedding was the shining highlight of their dream-come-true existence. “I used to come to pop concerts in the grounds of Slane and look up at the castle” reveals Bryan, “but I never ever imagined in a million years that I’d be getting married here.”
If you’d asked Kerry’s proud mum Sue Katona, though, she might just have predicted it – almost down to the last glittering crystal on Kerry’s gown and Gina shoes. “From the moment she was born, Kerry was determined to make something of herself,” Sue told Hello. “She dreamed of a day like today – and she got it.”

Although Bryan had first proposed three weeks after meeting Kerry almost exactly two years ago, non-stop work commitments and the birth of their adored daughter Molly Marie in September delayed the big day. Initially, however, Kerry hadn’t even wanted a grand wedding. Says Bryan “She wanted us to disappear and get married without even our mums there. Her explanation was that if we had a big do, there’d be 200 on my side of the church and only five on hers”

In the event, Kerry fell in love with the idea of that grand wedding and enlisted the help of wedding planner Tara Fay of Xena Productions and, as co-ordinator, Joanne Byrne, one of Dublin’s most dynamic PR executives.

This was the joining not just of a young couple, but of very two different families: Kerry’s small close-knit group from Warrington – her mum Sue, Grandmother Betty Katona, aunt Angela Turner and uncle Lenny Turner – and Bryan’s extended Irish clan. “Bryan has almost 200 first cousins as both his dad and I come from large families,” explains his mother Mairead, who is one of 11 children while her husband Brendan is one of 14.

Kerry, meanwhile, is not just the Queen of Bryan’s Heart (in the words of one Westlife mega-hit) but of her new mother-in-law’s, too. Smiles Mairead: “Out of all the girls in the world, if I could have chosen a bride for Bryan it would have been Kerry. She’s absolutely gorgeous.”

The immediate families have forged deep bonds – although, for reasons of space, only aunts and uncles rather than those 200-odd cousins were able to be present for this true Irish wedding, an hours drive from Dublin – a city where there band are true local heroes and where travellers arriving at the airport are greeted with a giant billboard that announces: Welcome to Dublin, home of Westlife.

In keeping with tradition, the bride arrived almost an hour late for the wedding – which had Bryan quipping after 45 minutes: “If she’s not here in five minutes I’m out of here.” But the arrival of his daughter carried by proud granny Sue Katona, proved the perfect distraction. Bryan jumped up from his pew to kiss Molly, who was dressed in a tiny ivory silk dress with a burgundy sash. “She just looked so cute, smiling away,” Bryan told Hello. “But that’s how she is: a dream baby and as good as gold.”

Soon after Molly’s arrival, the bridesmaids made their entrance by one. And then all eyes were on Kerry. As the nine-piece chamber orchestra played Pachelbel’s Canon, the beautiful bride stepped through the arched doorway and walked down the aisle of the 150-year-old stone church. She chose to arrive on the arm of her one-time foster father Fred Woodall (Kerry had spent part of her childhood in care, while remaining incredibly close to her mother) and drew gasps of admiration as she appeared. Bryan admitted to being blown away by his first sight of his bride. “She looked stunning. I was almost shocked at how beautiful she looked. When I turned to see her, I saw a princess walking up the aisle.”

“Every little girl fantasises about a fairytale wedding dress, but mine truly is.” Kerry told Hello, glowing with happiness. On the advice of Westlife stylist Michael Crosby, she and her mother had visited the Mayfair studio of couturier Neil Cunningham, Jamie Oliver’s wife Jools and prima ballerina Darcey Bussell.
“I said to Neil, I’ve just had a baby but I want to look slim and tall!” remembers Kerry, who is 5ft 3in to Bryan’s 6ft 4in. “Neil gave me a duchesse satin basque over a fish-tail skirt with tulle underneath, shimmering with Swarovski crystals. Mum instantly burst into tears when she saw it. The first time I tried it on I felt like a little girl again as I was wearing it with some high heels they gave me and my green socks! But it still looked amazing. “Then Neil suggested a veil. I laughed and said ‘Don’t virgins have them?’ but I ended up with a veil and Swarovski tiara, so it was even more beautiful then I could have dreamed.” (For added drama, Neil created an exact duplicate of the £10,000 dress in black for Kerry for the dinner and dancing afterwards.)

To go with her ‘something new’ dress, the bride chose a ‘something blue’ garter from Susan Hunter, Dublin’s swankiest lingerie store, and borrowed a £7,500 bracelet and £7,500 earrings from jewellers Appleby, who also made the couple’s rings. But when asked what her ‘something old’ was to be Kerry giggled “It’ll have to be my nan Betty. I adore her. She’s the warmest, funniest, most beautiful person I know – apart from me of course!! She added with another laugh.
As her attendants, Kerry chose her six closet friends – her aunt Angela Turner, who was matron-of-honour, Lisa Rhodes, Michelle Hunter, Marlyn Corbally, Bryan’s 18-year-old sister Susan and Atomic Kitten Natasha Hamilton – “my best mate from the Kittens”, says Kerry.

Fellow Kitten Liz McClarnon also jetted in for the wedding, fresh from the band’s chart success with Eternal Flame, “I told Liz, ‘If you’re not there, there isn’t going to be a wedding!’” Said Kerry. “I love Liz – we were like sisters, living in each other’s pockets 24 hours a day. But the reason Tash is my bridesmaid is that she was my drinking partner when I was single!”

In keeping with the wedding’s white, gold and burgundy theme, the bridesmaids wore customised black-beaded, wine-coloured raw silk dresses with fishtail trains by Ian Stuart International at Virgin Bride, who also made their matching silk shoes.

The groom’s outfit of a gold frock coat over a burgundy waistcoat shot through with gold was a very last minute choice in place of traditional morning dress, which Bryan thought made him look like a hotel porter. He was attended by Westlife member Shane Filan and friends Mark Murphy, Ray Arnold, Gary Nolan and Peter Smith with Eddie Loughlin as his best man. The rest of Westlife – Kian Egan, Mark Feehily and Nicky Byrne, who was accompanied by his long-time girlfriend Georgina Ahern, daughter of the Irish Prime Minister – were among the wedding guests.

Faced with Bryan’s sartorial emergency in the run-up to the wedding, master tailor Louis Copeland was commissioned to make the new outfit almost overnight. Kerry was bowled over when she first glimpsed Bryan in his frock coat two nights before the wedding but she superstitiously refused to let him kiss her in it – despite his best efforts – until the day itself.

“He looks amazing,” she beamed on the night of the wedding. “But then he always does. To me Bryan looks just like James Dean…” The effect was only slightly spoiled when he reappeared five minutes later wearing only the tie, a schoolboy’s cap and a pair of charcoal-coloured Y-fronts stuffed with socks. How these two love a joke…

In fact, the walls of Slane Castle had been reverberating with laughter all week long in the run-up to the wedding. Kerry and Bryan had invited 26 of their closest friends and family to join them at the castle for six days of celebrations and a glimpse of the amazing lifestyle the couple’s success now affords them.
This was the first event this historic castle had hosted since it burned to the ground in 1991 and was faithfully rebuilt from photographs and fragments – an epic labour of love that took the Earl of Mount Charles, its owner, and a team of expert craftsmen and builders ten years.

“I’ve been pretending I live here in this castle that my millionaire father died and left me!” reveals Kerry, who in reality was raised single-handed by her mother Sue. “But I can’t keep the pretence up. I keep saying ‘You’ve got to come and look at this,’ like an excited kid!”

In the countdown to their special day, the atmosphere was like one giant slumber party. There was quad-biking, clay pigeon-shooting, horse-riding, a spa-day for the girls and a golf tournament for the boys – for which they were joined by Bryan’s close friend Ronan Keating. “It was two pounds a man – that’s a pot of 40 quid!” smiles Bryan, who may now be a multimillionaire but still clearly remembers when that sum would have been a small fortune. Incidentally, the pot went to Bryan’s uncle Gerard Crotty. “One of my uncles, he’s the one I’m closest to,” says Bryan, “so I’m glad that it was him!”

But the highlight of the pre-wedding partyathon was Thursday’s karaoke night. Kerry belted out Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive, while Bryan, who was one of Dublin’s top competitive karaoke singers before joining Westlife, took the mike for “every other song” according to his mother, Mairead, including Matchstick Men and Mustang Sally. Wasn’t it intimidating for their loved ones to get up and perform in front of these two professionals? “Not really,” Joked Kerry’s aunt Angela. “They can’t sing either!”

Lord Mount Charles enjoyed seeing the couple and their loved ones let their hair down. With it’s natural amphitheatre, his home has hosted rock concerts for U2, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen and Queen. Many of the artists have stayed at the castle and even become friends. “It’s appropriate that our first big event after reopening is for a member of Westlife,” says Lord Mouth Charles, “because they’re the biggest music phenomenon around.”
Since they first tasted fame in 1999, Westlife have of course been making, and breaking, records – getting into the Guinness Book Of Records as the most successful new chart act of all time and achieving five consecutive number ones with their first five singles. (In all, they have now had nine number one hits.) But during their days at the castle, that celebrity was almost forgotten in the cosy familiarity of family life. Said Bryan: “It’s been so great for Kerry and me to be able to spend this time with the people we love and treat them to a once-in-a-lifetime experience here at Slane. It’s a time we’ll always remember and treasure.”

Just as they will treasure their memories of the wedding itself. To watch the couple take their vows during a traditional wedding Mass, 240 guests squeezed into the tiny, flower-decked church just 13 minutes from the castle. Said Bryan: “It’s the most perfect little church I’ve ever seen in my life. Beautiful.”
The vaulted church looked even more exquisite thanks to the work of Irish society florist James Bailie who, in keeping with the fairytale theme, created towering candelabras with white roses and Christmas-tree branches, reflecting Kerry’s love of all things Christmassy. The choir rail was garlanded with more branches, white roses, trailing amaranth, euphorbia and white lilies, which infused the chapel with their romance fragrance. The bride’s bouquet, meanwhile, was a tiny posy of ivory Bianca roses, wired with Swarovski crystals to make it sparkle as she moved. Her flowers were echoed in the bridesmaids’ bouquets, which also featured hypericum berries and gypsophila.

Romantically lit by dozens of beeswax candles amidst branches and pine cones, the service began. It was led by old family friend of the McFaddens, Father JJ Mullin. “He was my school chaplain but also much more,” says Bryan, who went to Rosmini school in Drumcondra, Dublin. “He was brilliant. Whenever you wanted to get your homework done, or just have a smoke, you’d go to his office. He was more like a friend to the pupils and was always just JJ to us. I always said if I ever did get married – however unlikely that seemed – then I wanted him to marry us. So he was thrilled to bits when I asked him.”

At the start of their wedding ceremony, Kerry and Bryan lit a candle at either end of the altar, symbolising their two separate lives. Having taken their vows, the couple used those two candles to light a single one symbolising their union. They then ignited the tapers held by their mothers in the front pews, who turned to light those of the other guests, and so on. Eventually, each member of the congregation was holding a lit candle, sharing a truly moving experience. For Kerry and Bryan, this was perhaps the most highly-charged emotional moment of the service, as their 21-year-old friend, singer and DJ Dane Bowers, sang his solo From The Heart from the gallery.

“Dane’s is a song that’s very special to us,” explains Bryan. (During Dane’s time as front-man of the band True Steppers, his hits included Buggin’ and Out Of Your Mind with Spice Girl Victoria Beckham.) “Kerry and I had been going out for about a year and a half. We were getting on perfectly and everything was great, but one night we were sitting listening to that song when we looked into each other’s eyes and it just sparked something off, as if it was the first week we met all over again. It was really strange because it was the same for both of us – and pure coincidence that it happened to be a friend who was singing the song.
“It’s been like that ever since. I just love Kerry so much. She’s the mother of my baby – and a really great mother – and she’s my best friend. I can’t believe my luck. So to have that song for our wedding, sung live by Dane, was really special.”

Led by Father JJ, the couple exchanged their vows and their rings. And what rings too – in platinum, appropriately enough, considering the couple’s songs have sold so many millions of copies. Taking the form of two hoops of diamonds, Kerry’s was designed to fit on either side of her engagement ring. Bryan’s was even glitzier, if anything, set with a magnificent 6.36 carats of diamonds – “A beautiful knuckle-duster!” Gifts for the attendants were the single-stone diamante earrings and necklaces worn by the bridesmaids and, for the men, cufflinks engraved with ‘usher’, ‘best man’ and so on from Virgin Bride.
As might be expected music played a starring role in the proceedings. The bridesmaids made their entrance to Air On A G String. (After horse-riding two days earlier, the bride was so stiff that she’d joked she ought to be walking down the aisle to the theme from a John Wayne western.) No hymns are usually sung by the congregation at an Irish Catholic wedding Mass, so the ten-strong London Community Gospel Choir, who flew in specially for the wedding service, sang pieces including If Love Could Just Be Love, Perfect Harmony and, during the signing of the register, Lean On Me. A solo gospel rendition of the Lord’s Prayer even trigger a spontaneous round of applause.

As well as it’s serious moments, the service had plenty of light-hearted ones too: “A truly marvellous combination of love and laughter,” as Father JJ put it afterwards. When the moment came to exchange gold and silver coins as a token of all the possess, Bryan turned to the congregation and asked: “Anyone got any Euros?” And after the couple pledged their devotion to one another – sealed with at least three lingering kisses – they embraced their relations, Kerry leaning over and asking Betty Katona: “Nan, give us a snog, then!”

There wasn’t a peep out of little Molly until, right on cue, she gurgled contentedly when a prayer was offered up for her. But the highlight of the service for the couple came when Father JJ presented them with a scroll featuring a nuptial blessing from Pope John II (for whom Westlife had played just a month ago), which had been delivered just the night before. “That was a total surprise – fantastic,” said Bryan. “It means so much to us to have that blessing.”
Kerry and Bryan had certainly been counting the weeks until their wedding. “We’d say to each other, ‘Two months to go!’ ‘A month to go!’ ‘Four weeks, babe!’” they say. But it was the delivery of the bridesmaids’ dresses to Slane that inexplicably triggered a bout of pre-wedding nerves in Kerry and brought home to her the amazing changes in her life over the last few years.

“I’d been dead calm – although dead excited – up till then, doing table plans and so on. Then I saw their beautiful dresses and for some reason it all hit me – wham! I was almost overwhelmed. My mum and Bryan clocked that something was wrong, but Bryan went off to watch football and I just got into bed with my mum. I said to her, ‘Look back seven years; can you believe where we are? We used to live in dingy council flats. I used to be on the dole. I used to go the pub with a pound in my pocket. Once, we had to sell our pet parrot because we were so short of money.’

“Fame and stardom had never really hit me before, but here I was, with Mariah Carey on the invitation list and hairdressers, stylists and wedding planners running round after me.” (Mariah, who had teamed up with Westlife for the hit Against All Odds, sent affectionate regrets that she was unable to come.)
And yet, says Kerry, part of her had always known it would turn out this way. “I’m sure every little girl believes she’s unique and special, but I really did. I thought I was going to be famous and I’m a determined person. I’ve worked and slogged so hard to get what I’ve got and it’s paid off. And my wedding pictures will be seen by people all over the world. It’s mad but it’s wonderful!”

Nevertheless, continues Kerry, who is now kicking off a career in TV as showbiz correspondent on Channel 5’s show Exclusive: “I’d never, ever looked at Bryan as if he was ‘Bryan from Westlife’ before. But somehow I did the other night and later, when I got into bed with him, I asked, ‘Why on earth are you marrying me?’

“But he always says the same and tells me, ‘You wouldn’t be with me if I wasn’t in Westlife’. And I go, ‘That’s true, but only because our paths would never have crossed if you weren’t in Westlife…’” (The couple met while touring, promoting their number one hits.)

“But I love him more than anything. It took me so long to be myself in front of Bryan and now that I am it feels so right. He’s my best friend and my knight in shining armour, all rolled into one. I know it sounds corny, but he’s the most genuine, down-to-earth, caring person I’ve ever met in my life – and I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with him.

“And I wouldn’t care if we had no money and were on the streets. I love Bryan for himself and I know that he loves me – and that means everything.”
That deep love has now been sealed with the most romantic of marriage ceremonies. As the newlyweds left the church, shrounded romantically in mist, the gospel choir crooned Oh, Happy Day – and that was just the start of it. The couple’s Rolls-Royce slowly made its way through a throng of fans towards the castle where the celebrations would begin in earnest: a champagne reception, an extravagant four-course dinner, plus dancing, live music and entertainment that would see the guests partying as only the Irish can until dawn.

For both these young stars, it was the next chapter in a fairytale-come-true – a fairytale they were able to share for one very special day with those closest to them. As Bryan says: “Looking back on the day, I can sum it up in just one word – ‘Wow’.”

And if Bryan and Kerry sometimes had to pinch themselves to check they weren’t dreaming, who would have been surprised?
Hello Magazine
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