Lisa Dwan has tied the knot with her hubby, Paul Henninger, in a fairytale wedding, which was planned on the spur of the moment.
It was only when Lisa’s close pal, TV chef Clodagh McKenna, spilled the tea that Lisa was officially off the market that we caught wind of the news.
So, just how did Lisa manage to keep her big day under wraps? Speaking to EVOKE, the MobLand actress admitted: ‘Well, only because I didn’t know what it was going to be real until it actually happened!’
The couple held their ceremony at the ‘jewel box’ Fitzrovia Chapel, and partied with their guests at the nearby pub The Devonshire.
It was a star-studded affair, with Geri Halliwell, Laura Whitmore and her husband, Iain Stirling, and Clodagh McKenna in attendance.
Love Actually star Bill Nighy read a poem, and Imelda May and the Hothouse Flowers frontman Liam Ó Maonlaí performed at both the ceremony and the reception.
Lisa told EVOKE that she and Paul were originally going to tie the knot at German Street Theatre, where they met, but the date didn’t work out, so Paul found the chapel.
‘There was very little stress. I saw the wedding dresses I wanted straight away, ordered them, and they arrived and fitted perfectly. I loved both dresses, and I couldn’t decide, so I decided not to decide, and I was going to wear both.’
The actress told us of how her four-year-old daughter, Luna, was supposed to wear blue to match the bridesmaids, but ‘put together a campaign’ to wear white.
‘Luna was meant to wear blue too, but she insisted she was wearing white. She put together an amazing campaign that included putting in wedding brochures, as she described them, written by herself, with heavy suggestions that she should be wearing white,’ Lisa laughed.
‘So, we wrote back to her, from the wedding party [myself and Paul], to say that we admired her efforts and her relentlessness very much, and her persistence, and so we gave her permission to wear whatever colour she wanted.’
Lisa said it was an immediate decision to have Luna and her stepdaughter, Lola, in the bridal party, and that ‘there would have been a strongly worded letter if they weren’t’.
Lisa and Paul originally planned to get married in New York, but they got a firm talking to from their friends, who decided it wouldn’t be ‘fair’ on them.
‘We ended up feeling a bit guilty about that and moving it to London instead,’ she said. ‘Any suggestion people made, we said, “Yep, great”. Like Fintan O’Toole stood up and gave a speech, that was impromptu. Paul’s dad got up and made a speech and sang a song, that was impromptu.’
‘It was just that type of wedding. It was magical. Everybody had a ball.’
Lisa said that although it was the perfect wedding, it wasn’t one she had on her vision board from day dot. ‘We left invites ’til the very last minute,’ she said. ‘We gave people very little notice’.
‘My mom had already booked a holiday that she had to cancel, but the minute we told people, they were like, “Yep, we’ll be there”. There was such a gung-ho feeling.’
Speaking about her star-studded guest list, Lisa said: ‘I have friends from all walks of life, like I have friends from 45 years ago, none of it matters what people do for a living. They’re all just extremely good people, and I’ve got very deep friendships.’
