Finding the perfect location to get married can be tricky. From booking the florists to finding a caterer, the place you get married needs to have everything you need nearby while also being stunning for photos. So, if you’re looking to tie the knot but not sure where in Ireland to exchange your vows, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve done the hard work for you and found the best Irish counties to say your ‘I Do's’ by looking at all 32 counties in Ireland and ranking them based on seven different factors. Here is what we found.
The best Irish county to say ‘I do’
Dublin came out on top as the best Irish county to get married in and ranked first for the number of wedding venues, local catering services, available wedding florists, hotels and transport options, and the approximate number of Instagram tags. The only thing Dublin didn’t come out on top for is the average temperature which tends to be cooler on average than the location with the highest average, Louth. The second best county to get married in is Cork, coming second to Dublin for multiple different services including the number of wedding venues, local catering services, wedding florists, and transport options. Cork is the second largest city in Ireland so it has plenty on offer for newlyweds and their guests.
The most photogenic Irish counties
One of the most important things to come out of your wedding is the photographs. These memories last a lifetime and if the photos come out less than picture-perfect, you may spend more time worrying about how they look than remembering your special day. The top five most photogenic counties in Ireland are:
- Dublin
- Galway
- Limerick
- Kilkenny
- Derry
These five locations have over 17 million Instagram hashtags collectively so if beautiful scenery is high on your priority list, then one of these locations is a must. Dunlin boasts some of the best photogenic spots including Anne’s Lane with its famous umbrella ceiling, Trinity College Library with rows and rows of books, and the Georgian Quarter boasting an entire rainbow of multicoloured front doors. On the opposite end of the scale, Tyrone, Wexford, Waterford, Sligo, and Meath were the least photogenic counties with only 62,000 Instagram tags collectively - could this just mean they are the perfect hidden gems?
Rain rain, go away!
Although some may believe that rain on your wedding day is actually lucky, most brides spend the weeks before the big day hoping for sun and good weather. We looked at the average temperature of each Irish county during the wedding season (May to October). The top five counties with the highest average temperature are:
- Waterford
- Cork
- Louth
- Limerick
- Clare
Despite the old wive’s tale, rain is pretty much every bride’s worst nightmare on their wedding day so we also looked into the chance of rain in each of the 32 counties.
Unfortunately for brides getting married in Mayo, this is the county with the highest chance of rain so you might want to dust off the umbrellas. On the other hand, those getting married in Louth may be in luck as it has the lowest chance of rain out of all the Irish counties put together.
The worst Irish county for upcoming nuptials
So now you know which Irish counties are the best to get married in, but how does the rest of Ireland stack up?
According to our data and the overall scores based on the seven data points, Leitrim sits firmly at the bottom of the list with an overall score of 31.4. It was let down by a variety of things including its lack of wedding venues (only 5), only 7 local florists, and only one local catering service.
The second worst place to get married in Ireland is Longford. Longford actually has a lower number of wedding venues and hotels than Leitrim does and just as many catering services, florists, and transport options, but it wins out over Leitrim by having a better average temperature and less chance of rain - surprising, considering the two are only about half an hour away from each other. If you’re considering getting engaged to the love of your life, or are planning a wedding anywhere in Ireland, make sure you browse our full range of engagement rings, wedding rings, and diamond rings for the special occasion.
Methodology
In order to find out which of the 32 Irish counties was the best place to get married, we looked at seven different data points; the number of official wedding venues, number of catering services, number of florists, the number of hashtags for the name of the county, number of hotels, number of transport options and the average temperature within the wedding period (May-Oct).
- To find out the number of venues, caterers and florists we scraped the listings for each of these from Wedding Pages.
- The number of Instagram hashtags was found using the count for how many times the name of the county was tagged - if the name was also common for something else ((e.g. "Mayo") added the word "County" to the tag). The number of hotels within a city was collated by scraping Booking.com.
- We found the number of transport options within each city by checking manually which options were available in each city.
- To find the average temperature of each city during the wedding season (May-Oct) we Googled ‘Average temperature of [COUNTY] by month’, we then took the temperature of each month from May-Oct and used excel to form an average. Google uses NOAA (formerly NCDC) as its source for temperature averages.
- In order to create an overall score for each city we used this method: Venues+Florists+caterers+transport links + Weather + (number of hotels /100) + (insta tags/10000).
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The best Irish county to say ‘I do’
Dublin came out on top as the best Irish county to get married in and ranked first for the number of wedding venues, local catering services, available wedding florists, hotels and transport options, and the approximate number of Instagram tags. The only thing Dublin didn’t come out on top for is the average temperature which tends to be cooler on average than the location with the highest average, Louth. The second best county to get married in is Cork, coming second to Dublin for multiple different services including the number of wedding venues, local catering services, wedding florists, and transport options. Cork is the second largest city in Ireland so it has plenty on offer for newlyweds and their guests.The most photogenic Irish counties
One of the most important things to come out of your wedding is the photographs. These memories last a lifetime and if the photos come out less than picture-perfect, you may spend more time worrying about how they look than remembering your special day. The top five most photogenic counties in Ireland are:- Dublin
- Galway
- Limerick
- Kilkenny
- Derry
These five locations have over 17 million Instagram hashtags collectively so if beautiful scenery is high on your priority list, then one of these locations is a must. Dunlin boasts some of the best photogenic spots including Anne’s Lane with its famous umbrella ceiling, Trinity College Library with rows and rows of books, and the Georgian Quarter boasting an entire rainbow of multicoloured front doors. On the opposite end of the scale, Tyrone, Wexford, Waterford, Sligo, and Meath were the least photogenic counties with only 62,000 Instagram tags collectively - could this just mean they are the perfect hidden gems?Rain rain, go away!
Although some may believe that rain on your wedding day is actually lucky, most brides spend the weeks before the big day hoping for sun and good weather. We looked at the average temperature of each Irish county during the wedding season (May to October). The top five counties with the highest average temperature are:- Waterford
- Cork
- Louth
- Limerick
- Clare
Despite the old wive’s tale, rain is pretty much every bride’s worst nightmare on their wedding day so we also looked into the chance of rain in each of the 32 counties.Unfortunately for brides getting married in Mayo, this is the county with the highest chance of rain so you might want to dust off the umbrellas. On the other hand, those getting married in Louth may be in luck as it has the lowest chance of rain out of all the Irish counties put together.
The worst Irish county for upcoming nuptials
So now you know which Irish counties are the best to get married in, but how does the rest of Ireland stack up?According to our data and the overall scores based on the seven data points, Leitrim sits firmly at the bottom of the list with an overall score of 31.4. It was let down by a variety of things including its lack of wedding venues (only 5), only 7 local florists, and only one local catering service. The second worst place to get married in Ireland is Longford. Longford actually has a lower number of wedding venues and hotels than Leitrim does and just as many catering services, florists, and transport options, but it wins out over Leitrim by having a better average temperature and less chance of rain - surprising, considering the two are only about half an hour away from each other. If you’re considering getting engaged to the love of your life, or are planning a wedding anywhere in Ireland, make sure you browse our full range of engagement rings, wedding rings, and diamond rings for the special occasion.
Methodology
In order to find out which of the 32 Irish counties was the best place to get married, we looked at seven different data points; the number of official wedding venues, number of catering services, number of florists, the number of hashtags for the name of the county, number of hotels, number of transport options and the average temperature within the wedding period (May-Oct).