Luck of the Irish is in full force at a wedding

They say travel changes a person. I don’t know about other people, but I can vouch for the fact that my most recent trip to Ireland has allowed me to see things in a new light.

Before the trip, I thought my daughter and her fiance’s decision to hold their wedding in his native country was, well, not really a great idea. After all, they both live in America and most of their friends do as well.

So having a wedding in Ireland seemed to pose unnecessary complications— planning from afar, requiring family and friends to travel across the ocean, forcing us to drive on the left side of the road. Not to mention the fact that I needed to find a mother-of-the-bride dress that looked good and traveled well, a task that caused me no small amount of anxiety.

But, after a year of secondguessing and some stressful planning (mostly handled by the couple), the wedding was finally held in Kilkenny, Ireland in mid-June. Now that it’s over I can safely say that my worries about having an Irish wedding were unfounded. I went from believing it wasn’t a great idea, to thinking it was maybe the best idea ever.

I’m not just saying that because so many people complimented my dress (although I was pretty happy about that). What really made the wedding fun was that, of the 70 guests in attendance, the majority were family and friends from America who arrived before the wedding and spent several days in the town of Kilkenny.

Kilkenny is a small city, known for its many medieval buildings, as well as its shops and restaurants. Our hotel was located right in the downtown area, so that we could easily spend our days exploring on foot its winding streets, charming boutiques and historic sites.

What made it so much fun was that we were constantly meeting up with people that we knew—friends, relatives, acquaintances.

When we first arrived in Ireland, we took a shuttle from the airport to the car rental center. The shuttle driver was a cheerful older Irish gentleman who was quick to offer some words of wisdom about Irish weddings.

“Well, you know,” he said in his amiable Irish brogue. “Irish weddings last three days. You’ve got to pace yourself.”

We laughed at this. Of course we were not going to have a three-day wedding.

As it turned out, we devoted so much of our first three days in Kilkenny to celebrating in large groups at restaurants and pubs that I realized our Irish driver may not have been joking after all.

The wedding itself could not have gone better. The ceremony was held at a beautiful 16th century merchant’s home. My daughter had warned us that the officiant was a Druid, so I’d been dreading the possibility of a weird ritual for months.

But when he arrived, the “Druid” was dressed as a priest and he performed a truly meaningful and moving ceremony that interwove Celtic and Christian traditions. I found myself impressed by his demeanor and knowledge, and intrigued by the fact that he resides on one of the Aran Islands, populated by only 800 residents he described as being like family.

After the ceremony the entire 70 attendees walked to a nearby pub for the cocktail hour, and from

there walked to another medieval building for the reception. My daughter looked beautiful and she and her new husband were obviously truly enjoying the day. Oh, and did I mention that received many compliments about my

much fretted over motherof-the-bride dress?

In point of fact the wedding itself didn’t last three days, but it began at 3:00 p.m. and was still going strong when the band quit (and so did I) at midnight. The next day, my

husband, son and I joined my sister and her husband for a journey to the west coast of Ireland.

Travel, like weddings, always feel a bit stressful in the planning but well worth it in the end. And it really does change a person.

Because before the wedding, whenever I told someone about our destination, I would preface it by saying “I don’t recommend having a wedding overseas.” But now that it’s over, I find myself saying “I totally recommend it.” Laura Catalano is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in books, magazines and newspapers. She is a frequent contributor to MediaNews Group.