Tales From the Minivan

As I know many of you are aware Andrew and I got married in a very unconventional way, on St. Patrick’s Day in the Irish Pub we met at. Here’s a post from CPO’s Message Boards I originally wrote 3 days after I got married in 2005 all about how we came to the decision to get married on St Patrick’s Day and how our little “pub” wedding turned into a national news segment. (I still joke it must have been a slow news day!) There’s also a few pics so keep reading to the bottom!
So as some of you may know by now, my long-time significant other and I have finally “tied the knot”.

I thought I would share our story of how my idea for a small little ceremony turned into a national news segment.

Andrew and I met 4 years ago in a local Irish Pub (O’Leary’s), since meeting we’ve built a great little family. Andrew proposed to me 2 years after meeting while vacationing at Walt Disney World. It was like a dream! He had it all arranged, previous to arriving. Our first night there we visited the Magic Kingdom. He seemed antsy all evening but I had no idea why, then just as the fireworks were about to begin, 2 cast members walked us into a roped off area called the “Secret Rose Garden” waiting there was a bottle a sparkling cider, chocolate truffles, & chocolate covered strawberries. I had no idea what was happening, I kept thinking…”I don’t think were supposed to be in this area, someone else is going to be upset we have their reserved spot for the fireworks viewing”. Then just as the fireworks began he dropped down on one knee and passed me a glass slipper, inside the most beautiful 3 stone diamond ring, and proposed. Of course, I accepted!

Now getting married had always been talked about, but was one of those things we kept putting off, our son Liam was born later that year (2002). We decided to have another sibling for him closer in age than his big sis Mackenzie, so little Ciaran was born almost 2 years to the day later. We were busy building our family so getting married just seemed to not be a big priority. Then a life changing event happened in early Feb that put things in better perspective for us. While Andrew was playing his weekly hockey game with his buddies, tragically one of them collapsed and died right in front of them. The next day we both decided together that we need to make time to get married.

A week or so passed and I thought to myself, St Patrick’s Day is coming up wouldn’t be great to have that as our anniversary date? I thought a small civil ceremony, in the place we met, our local pub, my parents , his parents, the kids and our witnesses. I knew that the date was quickly approaching so there wasn’t much time to do more than that.
We got a hold of the pubs owner, who happens to be a good friend of Andrew’s, and he was gracious enough to allow us to use the pub as our venue, and closed off a major portion for us to celebrate that afternoon. Remember this is also his busiest day of the year, and Saint John is “Canada’s Most Irish City”.

Now that the venue was established, our next step was wedding rings. We knew that we really wanted to get Irish Claddagh Bands. So while searching the net, I found the “Irish Soulmate Band”. It had the gaelic words “Mo Anam Cara” etched into the band which translate into “My Soul Friend”, they also have the Claddagh symbol inbetween each word. Perfect! Seeing that my name is Cara, the next hurdle was making sure we could get these shipped to us quickly as they had to be sent from Ireland. Thank you www.irishcelticjewels.com !!

As the next few weeks went on I hadn’t done any more planning, we had our venue the rings were ordered, we found someone to marry us, we told our immediate family, (who I might add were not overly enthusiastic about our non-traditional idea), but really liked the date, Andrew’s parents actually got engaged on St. Patrick’s Day, they of course have Irish roots so it’s a significant day in their lives. Andrew then took an annual trip he makes with his friends, he happened to mention our plans which were met with much enthusiasm, at that point he informally invited them ALL. Gradually, more and more people started hearing about it, and our invitee list was growing… I needed to start planning a “real wedding”, our list had grown to almost 80.

Now it was time to find a dress, I could never have envisioned myself in a tradition wedding dress, but my mother was insisting we just go take a look. The first bridal shop we visited had this gorgeous flash green gown in the display window. I pointed it out to mom and laughed, “Wouldn’t that be funny, get married on St Paddy’s Day in a green dress!” Mom just rolled her eyes. We went into the shop and looked around, just as we were heading out, I looked back at the dress, and said, “Why don’t I just try it?” Mom, much to her chagrin agreed. It fit perfect, like it was made for me. We left the shop, went to a few others, tried on tons of other gowns, but I couldn’t get the green one out of my mind. We went back and I bought it on the spot.

Now being my mothers only daughter, she wanted the whole she-bang and was insisting that we now get a photographer. I refused, saying that everyone we know has gone digital, we’ll be able to obtain their photos, for no cost at all. So not liking this, she came up with an idea to leak it to our local newspapers editor, thinking they may send a photographer to get photos, this was her way around me not wanting a photographer. The paper loved the idea and interviewed us at the pub during an annual children’s charity breakfast, that supports a program that brings children to Saint John from Belfast for 2 weeks during the summer. The article was in Monday’s paper with a nice color shot of us in front of the pub, it was really nice. The photographer mentioned he might try and get back if it was OK at the ceremony to get a photo of me in my green dress, to appease my mother, I agreed. What ensued after this is quite surreal!

CBC Radio called and wanted us to do an interview with them to open their morning show, another local radio station wanted us to help with their humorous morning drive to work show all on the morning of our wedding day. It was great fun! Dave the pub’s owner offered to pick me up in a Hummer he sponsors. When he arrived at the hotel, he warned me “they” were all waiting. I’m thinking our guests family…Andrew, but no “They”, meant photographers, TV cameras and reporters. I was in disbelief that our little pub wedding had gained this much attention. I tried my best to answer all of their questions, but in the end I blocked it all out and focused on the man I love, and pretended that we were the only 2 in the room. Andrew, if you’ve managed to find this I just want to say, “I Love You!”

Telegraph-Journal | Saint John
As published on page A1 on March 18, 2005

THE BRIDE WORE GREEN
(Peter Walsh/Telegraph-Journal)

Cara Fanjoy and Andrew Miller raise mugs of green beer to toast the new life they began Thursday afternoon as a married couple. Saint John’s uptown Irish pub O’Leary’s became the setting for their St. Patrick’s Day wedding. The couple met there and became Friday night, after-work regulars at the pub, which closed its doors for several hours so they, family and friends could enjoy the venue for the celebrations.

Me getting out of the Hummer

My Dad and I

Getting Interviewed by the CBC and CTV!

My Dad and Mom on the left and Andrew’s Parents on the right.

My Dad, Grandmother and on the far right my brother Curtis

A Family Shot!

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