The Extraordinary "Yes" of Marriage
Katherine Aherne
A few days after Christmas, I stood in the queue at the Aldi in Terenure when the older woman in front of me and I started to chat. She asked if I was a student. My accent and everything else about me gave away that I wasn’t from Dublin. I told her no, I had lived in Ireland for a few years though and work in Newman University Church. Her jaw dropped. She had been married there! I was also delighted by her news. I had just started collecting photos from couples who had been married in University Church. I wasn’t sure I would get any submissions and here was one falling into my lap. I told her about what I was doing, wrote down my email, and a few days later received her wedding photo.
Planning for the “Wedding Photo Display” began at the end of 2022. The idea for this new project was formed mostly from the dozens of conversations all of us on staff had, like the one in Aldi, with folks coming into University Church who told us their parents or aunt or uncle or cousin or child were married in the church. So, we set off to invite anyone who had been married there to send in their wedding photo and come to Mass near Saint Valentine’s Day to celebrate with chocolates, champagne, and a display of everyone’s photos in the church atrium.
Folks traveled from far and near to see the church where they had celebrated the sacrament of holy matrimony to submit their photo. An older gentleman took the train up from Limerick for the day to hand in his wedding photo and tell about his wife who had passed away a few years prior. Two sisters knew their parents had been married 70 years prior and traveled from Canada and England to meet in Dublin and visit. Many of our regular Sunday parishioners were also married in the church - Jackie and John, Dan and Martha, Anne and Kevin, Paddy and Catherine, and Adam and Caomhie, to name a few.
The stories contained in the photos are countless. Many were married in the church, took photos in Saint Stephen’s Green, and then walked over to The Shelbourne Hotel for their wedding breakfast. One woman told me how she and her sister were married in a joint ceremony to their two new husbands. Several more attended UCD and felt it was only right to get married in the university’s old chapel.
I consider it a great privilege to work on this wedding photo project and that the Notre Dame Newman Centre can help facilitate inviting back couples married in Newman University Church each February. My goal in 2023 was to collect 30 photos and have them displayed in the church atrium. It seems like a small goal when I look through the over 400 photos we now have on display each February.
Holy Matrimony is a gift with abundant graces. It is the only sacrament where the couple themselves confer the sacrament. There are witnesses in close family or friends and the Church’s official witness is the priest or deacon; but it is the man and woman who are ultimately conferring the sacrament and saying “yes” to this lifelong commitment in sickness, in health and for better or for worse.
As I scroll through photos from over 100 years of weddings I think about the families formed, the joy of having so many loved ones in one place at the same time and the beautiful music. I think of the mundane moments in these couples’ lives after their wedding day - coming home from work in the rain, deciding what to have for dinner, taking out the bins, scheduling appointments, and cleaning the kitchen. I think of the hard parts of life after their wedding day - losing a parent, not knowing where a job might take them, and caring for sick children. How extraordinary to say “yes” not only on your wedding day but all the days that follow.
In February 2026 I know I’ll have at least one new photo to add to our collection - my own wedding photo. My husband, James, and I were married in June 2025 in University Church. We met while singing in the choir in this church and have since made it our parish. If you or a loved one were married in Newman University Church we would love to add your photo to our collection. You can visit newman.nd.edu and select “submit your wedding photo.”