Travels in Eire #61

The next few weeks seemed to pass very quickly. Cailin and Darren had been attending several parties in their honor and began making their wedding plans. During this time Darren was also in the midst of working on a new fund raiser for the hospital and spending late nights at work. Cailin was trying to work out many of the details on her own in Derry without much knowledge of where to look. She did decide that a trip back to New York was a must to find her wedding dress. What she really wanted was for Darren to go with her to meet her family and friends.

Cailin contacted her new friend Ruth to help with some ideas about planning for the wedding. Ruth was a wealth of information and Cailin leaned on her for the few days that Ruth had available before she headed to the United States herself. Cailin was so happy the she would be able to return the hospitality to Ruth when she headed home to look for a dress.

Darren and Cailin had decided on an Irish wedding shortly after her citizenship papers came through, so there was not much time for planning. Availability for reservations were few and far between in Ireland. Cailin's parents and a few close family and friends would fly over to Ireland for the wedding. But Cailin and Darren would make a trip to New York City as soon as Darren's next fund raiser was over for an engagement party so that her New York friends and family could meet Darren.

While they wanted the wedding to be at Darren's family church in Spiddal, the small local church would not be large enough. Cailin's parents would probably stay at Maura and Philip's home, and most of those flying over would be at the Connemara Coast Hotel. The reception after the wedding would also be located there. So the decision was made to have the wedding there also.

Considerations also had to be made for invitations to all of Darren's friends from Derry and the musician friends he had worked with. It was going to be a large wedding. The day before would be a wedding mass at Darren's family church, and the civil ceremony would be with the large group at the Connemara Coast Hotel.

The most difficult thing to do was to set a date. It was not unusual in Ireland for a wedding to be during the week, which made the flying arrangements a little difficult for those coming from the United States. Darren and Cailin were trying to juggle arrangements for some of the attendees. So while it was close to Christmas, they decided for mid-December.

On of the reasons that they felt they wanted to wait was because they had asked Ryan Kelly to sing at the ceremony, and wanted Keith Harkin to help out with the entertainment for the reception and both of them would be out of town until mid-December.

Plans were all coming together and Darren and Cailin had made arrangements to fly to New York City for a long weekend. So much to do and so little time in New York City.