Offaly duo looking for votes to make dream wedding a reality

Loved up Offaly couple Garry McDermott and Cathy O’Reilly have lined up their happy ever after with a New Year’s Eve wedding in just under two years.

They’re now hoping to put the icing on their wedding cake - and much more too - by winning €20,000 to pay for their wedding.

It’s only votes that will get them the enviable prize however, so this week Cathy is asking the Offaly public for just that before the competition’s May 15 deadline. “If they could help us out, maybe someday we might return the favour,” she said.

Ferbane native Garry met Meath woman Cathy in Brisbane, Australia in 2010. Both due to return to Ireland at the time, they joined forces, moved home to Ireland and later Tullamore as a couple and as Cathy says “haven’t looked back since”.

It wasn’t all plain sailing, and the couple had to overcome some difficulties when it came to finding employment. While Cathy got a former life and pensions job in Dublin back, welder Garry wasn’t so lucky. A year on with no job in sight, Garry has since gone back to college to study social care and is currently a student.

Employment issues didn’t stop Garry adding to the couple’s love story however. Last November, after asking her parents’ permission and taking Cathy out for dinner in Bellinter House in Navan to celebrate her 30th birthday, he got down on one knee and popped the question. “We’d discussed it somewhat, but I wasn’t expecting it just there and then,” Cathy remembers.

Wedding planning began at once, and Cathy and Garry now have plans in place to celebrate their wedding with friends and family in Clonabreany House in Cathy’s native Meath on New Year’s Eve 2014.

While Cathy says their wedding will be a special day regardless of whether or not they win this wedding competition, winning it will make it more special and allow them to add touches they currently can’t. “It’d be nice to be able to do the extra little things that would make it our dream wedding,” she says.

The duo entered the competition they are hoping to win at www.winourwedding.ie. Unlike many wedding competitions, the winner can marry wherever and however they want, with up to €20,000 paid by competition organisers to their wedding suppliers.

Garry and Cathy are up against 42 other hopeful couples, with votes currently putting them in sixth place overall. It’s only the couple in the top spot on May 15 that gets the prize however, so Garry and Cathy are hoping a little bit of Offaly love will lift their campaign and get them the dream prize. “We are the only Offaly couple and we’re hoping to get the people of Offaly behind us,” Cathy says.

Romantic readers who would like to vote for Garry and Cathy to win their dream wedding can do so by voting for couple WOW001 at www.winourwedding.ie.