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My postman
hates me!
Our postman
is starting to distinctly dislike me because (according to him) I am responsible
for 50% of his workload! Our very kind neighbour Nicole took care of our
house when we were in Lanzarote & the first thing she said to me when
we got home was "I have never seen so much post in my life!!.
Planning
a wedding is great craic altogether - you get to justify buying loads
of magazines "for ideas & inspiration" & getting millions of brochures
& samples in the post to harass the poor H2B with �. "look darling, do
you like the deckled edge or silver roses?" The internet is even better
again - billions of websites all dedicated to the species known as the
Bride To Be.
Naturally,
as we only intend getting married once, I insist on exploring all avenues
to create the perfect wedding� on a budget. We sat down a few weeks after
we got engaged with about 10 kilos of hotel brochures to weed out the
"also-rans". That was fun!. Various methods of ruthlessness were employed
in this project including word of mouth, cost (�65 per head food minimum
- hah!) and location. We wanted a location close to either our own home
or our original family homes with nice gardens & at a fairly reasonable
price. So in the end we went off to see three hotels in Co. Wicklow -
all of which looked fairly similar on paper - to make a decision. Never
rely on word of mouth to book a hotel - you really need to look for yourselves.
We visited a very popular hotel with a gorgeous banqueting suite but when
we saw the rooms I nearly collapsed laughing. The d�cor was circa 1970
complete with authentically dingy bathroom & peeling wallpaper�.. and
this was the bridal suite! The guest rooms were worse so� bye bye Hotel
Number One.
Hotel Number
Two is also a well renowned weddingy hotel but we didn't like it at all.
It was at the upper end of our budget & the corkage charge was prohibitive.
We also saw the room with a wedding in full swing & it was very cramped
so that got knocked off the list too.
That left
us with Hotel Number Three - a hotel we would never have considered until
we dropped in one Thursday for a recce. It fitted the bill - it was within
our budget, had a huge banqueting room and dancefloor, beautiful gardens,
very reasonable corkage, the bedrooms were gorgeous and most of all it's
only 10 minutes from our home!. So we wrote a deposit cheque & booked
ourselves into the Arklow Bay Hotel on Friday 1st October 2004.
We figured
that if we had a reception site, we would need a church as well so off
we set again in search of a small church not too far from the hotel. Our
local librarians were really helpful & gave me a list of some suitable
churches in the area. We had a look at five of them & were able to make
a decision very quickly because we wanted somewhere old and off the beaten
track that would hold no more than 150 people. Eventually we found St.
Kevin's Church in Ballycoog which is part of the Avoca Parish - it was
built in 1816 & is tiny - about 15 steps will get me from the door to
the altar! A telephone call secured the booking provisionally and then
we discovered that we needed to bring our own priest. Luckily we know
just the man, a friend of my parents who also married one of my best friends,
so Fr. Gerry is all set & raring to go! All I need to do is get him to
sign the booking form & get it back to the Curate in Avoca.
P.S. We had
a lovely relaxing holiday in very hot & sunny Lanzarote
Hasta la vista
Aoife
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