An Irish couple decided to mark their upcoming nuptials with matching tattoos of their wedding date, only to have the big day postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Francis Donald, 26, and Fionnuala Kearney, 24, had their wedding date set for October 16, 2020. The couple, who became engaged three years ago after meeting at Ulster University, decided on a drunken whim to get tattoos of the planned wedding date while on vacation, reports The Daily Mail. They are now regretting that decision.

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Kearney, a social worker from Belfast, Northern Ireland, said: “We were in Turkey and had checked out of our hotel at 9am, but had to wait until the evening for our flight home – so we decided to go on a bar crawl.

“We strolled past a tattoo salon and we were tipsy, so thought it was a great idea to get matching tattoos.

“It’s funny because we were being extra careful to make sure we got the Roman numerals correct, and the staff were teasing us, saying: ‘Are you sure that’s the right date?’”

She said: "Francis and I often make spur of the moment decisions - we're quite spontaneous - so we decided to go for it and get matching tattoos.

Couple left devastated after having wedding date tattooed on their arms – before big day postponed by coronavirus https://t.co/U8ysOg9U4x

— The Sun (@TheSun) May 26, 2020

"When I was told we would have to postpone the wedding I was devastated of course - but we only realized afterwards about our tattoos.

"If you don't laugh, you'll cry!"

The couple have settled on a new wedding date of April 22, 2021 and are now trying to come up with an idea of how to make the date marked  in their tattoos meaningful, The Sun reports.

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Kearney said: “Somebody suggested that we do a skydive, other people have said we should lie and tell people the tattoos say the right date.

“I love the skydive idea.

“Whatever we do, we’re going to make it memorable.”