On Saturday was Margaret and Stephen's wedding in Skibbereen, and was by no means going to be a small little wedding. They were expecting well over 200 guests to the day, and almost 300 in total to be at the afters. A good Irish wedding I guess. The ceremony was at St Patrick's Church in Skibb followed by the reception at the West Cork Hotel.

Unfortunately the weather wasn't the best with it drizzling beforehand, so everyone had to dash into the church instead of waiting around outside. The same for afterwards, it wasn't going to be particularly enjoyable waiting in the rain after the church. So instead of waiting around, everyone decided to head off towards the West Cork Hotel while the bride and groom went off to try and get their photos done. Uns and I decided to stop in at the Corner Bar for one between joining the others at the hotel. We did think a few more would stop by there before the hotel, but seemed to just be its.

After a quick drink to whet the whistle at the Corner Bar, we headed down the road to the West Cork, a family owned and run Hotel built in 1902, which is situated in the centre of town beside the River Ilen. Slowly the guests made their way in, filling up the reception hall, until Margaret and Stephen arrived later on. They also ensured there was no shortage of Prosecco to go around before the speeches and the dinner. The rest of the evening was good fun, with good music, good drinking and good dancing. The others all started to arrive for the afters and joined in the party which went on until early hours of the next morning. We called it a morning night at around 5 when I started to fall asleep in the residents bar. Probably made sense to start heading home then!

Yesterday was a fairly lazy day for the most part, with a good sleep in and then just lazing about the house. Later in the evening, when we built up enough energy to head out, we made our way over to Skibbereen to meet up with the wedding party who had booked out the back section of the Corner Bar together with a guy on the guitar and mic. I like the Irish wedding culture (others might do it as well) where they have at least another night out with the guests which is usually a bit more relaxed and definitely a lot less formal. At least we had a good spot in the corner to catch up and laugh at the stories from the night before.

After the Corner Bar we decided to head into the village to Lil's where all the usual crowd were, but figured we wouldn't stay for long at all, both of us feeling rather knackered from the last few nights out. The Cup was there from the Cork Senior Football County Final which Castlehaven won back in October, so it was no doubt going to be good atmosphere inside. When we got there everyone was in good form, as well as a good number of the Castlehaven players who were loving the celebrations. There was apparently a small crowd from Dublin in the back of the pub who couldn't get over that the celebrations were still going on, two months later! Guess they hadn't figured out the cup isn't usual down at Lil's, so it hadn't been like this every night since :)

So we landed up staying a lot longer than the initially planned one hour, and even though I wasn't drinking, I was particularly enjoying the atmosphere and carry on inside! Definitely a good laugh - especially when trying to get everyone into the car at the end, it was like trying to round up sheep with one getting in the car and another sneaking back into the pub. Certainly a good laugh, but eventually we managed to pack everyone in and get them all dropped off! Then made our way back home, later than intended but definitely a good fun night.