A couple who had a fairytale engagement on the final day of Bloom festival are set to tie the knot in July next year.
Conor Kerley, 34, from Dundalk, Co Louth, proposed to Nicola McNamee, 33, from Ashbourne in Co Meath in the Beauty and the Beast show garden at Bloom on Monday after six years together.
Entrepreneur Conor, who owns award-winning plant-based nutrition product Phytaphix, told us how the movie was a favourite of his fiancée's, so he wanted to make the proposal extra special when he proposed twice to Nicola.
He said: “We got engaged very recently and we just picked the ring up so being old fashioned, everyone had said ‘well you’re not really engaged’ so I proposed again with the ring.
“It’s her favourite movie so when I saw it, I had to ask. She’s a massive fan. The rationale for the ring was Nicola being the beauty and me being the beast,” he said laughing.
Conor explained how they originally wanted a picture at the garden as part of a competition to win a pair of diamond earrings.
But the plan quickly snowballed when members of the public saw Conor get down on bended knee in the garden.
“We were passing like a shed and it had a poster on the back of it that said Beauty and the Beast and I thought that would be a nice place to get a picture for this competition so nobody was allowed in there except staff.
“But we asked the girl there if it would be ok because we just got engaged. We got the picture and then she invited us into the actual garden, which was cordoned off so there was no members of the public in there.
“From there, the crowd started gathering when I was on my knee. It completely snowballed from something quite innocent to something big.”
Conor said he originally proposed with no ring recently at a castle in Bangor.
“The first time was with a fake ring and the second was with a real ring,” he said.
The couple will tie the knot in Trim Castle in July 2023.
Beauty and the Beast will be staged at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre from November 24 until January 8, 2023.
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