When Roscommon woman Avril Hunt spoke to her brother Paul on the morning of her wedding to Colin Dowd on December 29th, she was feeling very relaxed. “As far as I knew, Paul was in Mexico, where it was 3 o’clock in the morning. He’d flown there for Christmas with his partner Sara and their daughter Isabella. I just told him we’d Skype him later on so he could be a part of the day.”
Paul, who lives in Melbourne, had told his sister he would not be able to attend, as he and his family had made the trip back home for the wedding of another Hunt sibling, Des, just a few weeks before.
“He had told me that it was just such a big trip to make, and that he was sorry, but he wouldn’t be able to make it. And of course we completely understood. But we did want to include them in some way, so we talked about Skype and FaceTime,” says Avril, waiting to board a flight to Paris for her ‘mini-moon’.
Unbeknownst to everyone attending the wedding service in St Eithne & Fidelma Church in Tulsk - bar a groomsman who’d also come up from down under - Paul had secretly made the trek, and was waiting to surprise his sister as she made her way down the aisle.
And when Avril’s dad whispered in her ear that her brother was standing there, the shock on her face became a viral hit around the world.
A gobsmacked Avril Hunt, as captured on camera by her brother Paul [Paul Hunt]
“It’s funny, you know, no bride wants someone attending the wedding who’ll steal all the attention, but it was the best surprise I ever could have gotten.”
In the week since Avril and Colin wed, their photographer, Elaine Lally, shared the moment when the beaming bride copped her brother in the congregation. And that photograph has become a huge viral hit online - with more than 18,500 likes on Facebook. So how does the happy couple feel about their wedding making international headlines?
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“Oh, to be honest with you, the whole thing has gone over myself and Colin’s heads,” Avril says, “We’ve spent the last week with family and friends. But it’s lovely to think it’s struck a chord with the Irish around the world. I’ve gotten messages from friends in the US and Australia saying their friends have seen it. It’s been great.”
The person, of course, that Avril is most grateful to is her brother Paul. But not just for the surprise.
“Dad whispered, ‘There’s Paul,’ and I turned and saw. And I just stood there and my jaw dropped. And Paul leant over and whispered into my ear, ‘Keep going! Keep going!’. I’m a week married now, so I’d really like to thank him for telling me to keep going up the aisle!”
