Who needs Oktoberfest...

when you have O'ROURKETOBERFEST!??!?!

So when my parents were here and we were traveling about we stayed with the O'Rourke/Tierney clan, whose daughter was engaged. Somehow the bride-to-be's visit ended in a "you should come to the wedding!" and me with a "YES." Well, this wedding just happened to be this past weekend and against all odds, I managed to make it!

I caught a ride to Wexford with some other Dublin O'Rourkes, including my third cousin Claire who is a fresher here at UCD. "Uncle" Eamon (who is really my second cousin once removed or some crazy thing like that) found someone who had an extra bed in the hotel for me to stay in... The only problem? All I had was her first name, no surname, phone number, room info or anything. Luckily (and somewhat sketchily), the hotel receptionist gave me the key anyway.

The wedding commenced at 3:30, but as it was a FULL CATHOLIC MASS it was not over until 5:30. However, it was beautiful and sweet and awesomely wedding-y, so it didn't seem two hours long at all. There were a few bumps in the road - for example, the symbolic candle the bride and groom lit went out immediately (whoops), but luckily they occurred in a funny/charming way, not a this-marriage-is-doomed way.

Look! Here's the blushing bride:


After the wedding was over there were family pictures, and since the only people I actually knew at this shindig WERE family members, I took this time as the perfect opportunity to photographically document the NUMEROUS SASS/EDGY HAIRPIECES.

Can I just take a moment to discuss this? Irish weddings are apparently the MECCA of sass hair accessories. Flowers, feathers, art deco thingys, even netted hat dohickeys... all present. In fact, the mother of the bride, mother of the groom AND maid of honor all had some form of sass-in-the-hair going on. At one point I counted 27 heads of hair that were bedecked in some way. (Hey, I said this was a full Catholic mass! And what with all the up-and-down, saying peace, getting communion, etc., there was a lot of time to look around...)

Just a small sampling of the sassitude:


I personally channeled Blair Waldorf with an understated, minimally feathered, chic black headband, but in hindsight I really should have cranked the sass-o-meter WAY up.

But anyway, back to the reception. There was champagne and strawberries and then we all moved inside this castle-esque hall for the dinner. Or so I thought. Actually, first there were speeches. The best man acted as MC, and introduced the father of the bride (my favorite "uncle," Eamon - that man is hilarious).
Then the father of the groom gave a speech.
Then the best man gave a speech.
Then the groom gave a speech.
Then the bride gave a speech.
Then the priest gave a speech.

At this point everyone is starving and through at least one (but probably more) glass of wine, so I think the priest's speech was mostly ignored. But all the other ones were lovely and/or funny.

Finally! Dinner was delicious and then there was more wine and then there was the first dance and the father-daughter dance. And then there was an awesome band that played into the wee hours of the morning.

And can I just say that the O'Rourkes are party animals? When I finally gave up the ghost at 4 a.m. and crawled my happy ass to bed, the bride and groom were still up running around, the PARENTS of the bride were still up running around and all sorts of Irish tomfoolery continued long after I hit the hay.

Weddings rock!

P.s. Look I got the pictures to work! Yay! Check out more sass on facebook.