A wedding story...

We got up and drove again Thursday morning... about two hours on the motorway to the outskirts of Dublin to a town called Leixlip.

We're staying at the Leixlip Manor Hotel. A fancy place! Not the type of accommodation we would normally stay at, but we're here for a wedding. Let me tell you the story of how this came to be...

A couple of years ago when we had returned to our hometown of Ottawa, I received an email from blog reader Barbara. We were house sitting in the village of Manotick on the outskirts of Ottawa, and Barb lives in Manotick with her partner John. 

Barb asked if we wanted to join them for a drink at their local hangout. We like meeting the people who read our blog, and we like having a drink... so it seemed like a win-win! 

John is originally from Ireland, and they had originally planned to get married here in 2020. But then Covid hit, and the plans were put on the backburner. They rescheduled for 2021, and then 2022.

We got together again when we visited the area in the fall of 2022. And when Ruth went to congratulate them, we learned that the wedding still hadn't taken place. It was now scheduled for May of 2023. They jokingly invited us to the wedding since three years would have passed since the original date and some of the guests have passed away! 

When we confirmed that we would in fact be in Ireland during the wedding, we were sent an official invitation.

It's not often that we have a chance to get cleaned up!

But of course traveling in a motorhome means that we don't have much extra space to be carrying around "smart casual" wedding attire. So regular readers know that we've been hitting up the charity shops in the towns we've been traveling through here in Ireland. 

We ended up with both of the above outfits for a total of €41 ($60 CAD, $44 USD). We're pretty happy with that!

The hotel wouldn't allow us to stay on their property in Max. From a business point of view, I kind of don't blame them. So we booked a room for €140 ($205 CAD, $150 USD) per night. This would allow us to take part and meet some other people. We would treat it as a little mini vacation!

Check in desk at the fancy hotel.

Our room is in this very old cottage.

But it's totally modern on the inside!

It felt good to have a proper full size bathroom to have a shower and get ready.

The wedding service was scheduled for 3:30pm, but most of the group were meeting in the bar for a drink beforehand.

Ready for the wedding, and heading over to the bar!

Notice the blue sky... they picked a perfect day for the wedding!

You can't come to Ireland and not have a Guinness!

We sat outside and met some of the 50 or so other guests.

Barbara and John walking down the aisle.

The happy couple.

Ready for dinner.

Our table.

The wedding menu.

Appetizer.

Main course.

Of course there was also soup and desert. We were stuffed!

The wedding cake.

First dance.

Barb is a little younger than us, and John is a little older. Interestingly, this is the first marriage for both of them, and neither have any children! Not often you hear about that happening. It also made for interesting demographics at the wedding. There weren't very many young people.

But you should have seen all these mostly 55 to 75year olds up there dancing and having fun. And of course lots of music from the 60's through 90's when they used to make really great music. What a great party! We didn't get to bed until around 1:00am. Haven't done that for a while!

We're about ready to head down to the included full breakfast buffet. Looks like another great day. We're staying here at the hotel another night to hang out with some of the other guests and there's a BBQ taking place this afternoon. Sounds like there is more fun to be had!

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Nice deal on this Anker Portable Power Station.

And in Canada...

Amazon 40" Smart TV.