The Bride is Always Late: Irish Wedding Blog from WeddingDates.ie » WeddingDates.ie Trousseau

10 Love Songs for your Wedding!

Shane — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 04:55:33 +0000

Here are 10 Classic Love songs for your Wedding!

The Beatles – Something (1969)
John Travolta w/ Olivia Newton-John – You’re the one that I want (1978)
Captain & Tennille – Love Will Keep Us Together (1975)
Sonny & Cher – I Got You Babe (1965)
Elton John – Your Song (1970)
Billy Joel – Just the Way You Are (1977)
The Beatles – And I Love Her (1964)
Eric Clapton – Wonderful Tonight (1978)
Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell – Ain’t No Mountain High Enough (1967)
Whitney Houston – I Will Always Love You (1992)

[Image by Leah Tihia. Sourced via Flickr Creative Commons Images]

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Happy New Years!

Shane — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 12:00:57 +0000

Just a quick hello to wish all of you a very Happy New Years! I hope everyone enjoyed their celebrations last night, and that 2012 brings happiness to you and your families! I hope ye all enjoy the last few days of the holidays! We’ll be back soon to keep ye posted on all things read more...

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Keep Calm, it’s Christmas!

Ciara Crossan — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 07:00:20 +0000

Wishing you and yours the merriest of Christmases!

With Love,

Ciara, Paul & the WeddingDates team xxx

FFFFOUND! | Colloco Keep Calm it’s Only Christmas Red (clipped to polyvore.com)

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Cork Business Going for Growth!

Ciara Crossan — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 10:26:41 +0000

Really nice piece in the Evening Echo last night about our participation on the Women in Business Going for Growth Programme.

They sure scoured the archives for that photo though!!

Going for Growth is a fantastic Enterprise Ireland supported program for female entrepreneurs who want to take their business to the next level and as part of my group, we were lucky enough to have Lulu O’Sullivan from GiftsDirect.com and Siopa.com as our Lead Entrepreneur. To say that the program has helped me evolve my business would be an understatement!

Highly recommended for any other female entrepreneurs looking to expand.

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Waterside House Hotel Wedding Open Day

Shane — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 14:52:32 +0000

For a limited time only, The Waterside House Hotel are offering the wedding package of the year for Summer 2012. For only €35.95pp, you can have the wedding of your dreams at the Waterside House Hotel. The package offers their couples almost everything they need and more to make their day special.

This Midweek Summer 2012 Package is only available until Oct 31st 2011. Come see at their Open Day on Saturday, 1st October from 2pm- 6pm in the Waterside House Hotel.

Click here for more information or to check availability for this Dublin Waterside Wedding Venue

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Introducing….the WeddingDates App

Ciara Crossan — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:44:31 +0000

iPhone owners and lovers of all things Weddings, will be delira to hear that we now have a WeddingDates App which you can download FOR FREE >>

The app allows you to search for wedding venues and Suppliers by County or Type, save shortlists and send suggestions to your fiancee or friends. You can check out wedding menus and brochures and even watch videos on the app! And it will also deliver our blog posts and tweets right to your phone daily.

If you are a fan of the app, leave a comment we’d love to hear what your experience is like with it and if there is anything extra you’d like us to add in version 2, bring it on!

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Winners!! Social Media Awards 2011

Ciara Crossan — Fri, 27 May 2011 12:26:45 +0000

Last night was the inaugural Social Media Awards in the Mansion House in Dublin. Organised by Damien Mulley, blogging guru in a similar style to the Irish Web Awards and the Irish Blog Awards, and hosted by the inimitable Rick O’Shea (him from the radio!)

We were finalists in 3 categories:

Best Video/Video Campaign for our rugby vid and our bridal blog
Best Online PR Campaign for the Wife Carrying Tour
Best use of Social Media for a Sponsorship Campaign for the Wife Carrying Tour

I donned the guna and hightailed it to Dublin yesterday evening for what was to be an eventful night!!! I was SO thrilled when Rick called out the winner for Best Online PR – WeddingDates!!

I was so happy I nearly knocked Rick O’Shea over in the process of collecting my award! You can see the spectacle and hear my acceptance speech below:

What I WOULD have said if I was a bit more composed on stage is that the whole Wife Carrying Tour couldn’t have happened without the generous support from our Sponsors, Carlton Hotel Group, Celtic Campervans, Cork-Swansea Ferries, RedFly, MaxRoam, HairyBaby and Tom Murphy Menswear. And of course to my IT/Video genius Paul who works with me day in day out in WeddingDates. And lastly, to my 2 “wife carriers” James Kennedy and Ruaidhri Martin – travelling across Europe with 3 lads was no mean feat for me (and I’m sure them too!) but it’s something that we will remember as the trip of a lifetime for years to come.

Thanks to everyone who has supported WeddingDates over the years and offered encouragement and advice. And thank you to everyone who has been sending lovely messages on Facebook and Twitter all last night and today. I couldn’t be happier!!

Well done to all the Social Media Awards Finalists and Sponsors, it is a great event to be associated with and I look forward to many more years of these awards to come!

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For the day that’s in it….Something GREEN!

Ciara Crossan — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 08:30:09 +0000

Happy St Patrick’s Day everyone! Hope you are all out there celebrating your Irish-ness….no matter where in the world you are!

For the Paddys Day (or even March) brides out there, you might consider an alternative to the “something blue” and go with “something green” for your wedding day.

Love this green shamrock garter from The Garter Girl to bring a little bit of the luck of the Irish to your wedding day!

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Wedding Industry Awards 2011

paul — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 16:20:28 +0000

Lucky me, I got to attend the industry night of the year on Monday evening – The Wedding Industry Awards hosted by weddingsonline.ie. It was a black tie gala dinner so as you can imagine, everyone in the Crowne Plaza Northwood was dressed to impress!

We had a gorgeous dinner, followed by a high energy auction to raise money for Barnardos Childrens Charity. There were something like 27 categories, and my fingers were worn off me tweeting them as they were announced! A full list of award winners is here but I wanted to give a special shout out to some of our venues and suppliers who scooped prizes. Congrats to ye all and here’s to another fantastic year of wedding business!

Overall Wedding Venue of the Year: Lough Eske Castle

Exclusive Wedding Venue of the Year: Westport House

Wedding Castle Venue of the Year: Dromoland Castle

Ulster Wedding Venue of the Year: Lough Eske Castle

Munster Wedding Venue of the Year: Ballygarry House Hotel & Spa

Wedding Jeweller of the Year: Voltaire Diamonds

Wedding Transport Supplier of the Year: All Events Limousines

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WeddingDates.ie 2011 Survey Results

Ciara Crossan — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 10:44:33 +0000

This is our third year running a survey with the engaged couples out there, this year we conducted the survey at the Wedding Journal Show in Citywest with 160 couples. In 2008, we surveyed people on their Wedding budgets and last year we did an engagement survey. This year, we looked at the use of the internet by brides and grooms and have found that….

TECH SAVVY BRIDES ON THE RISE!

A recent survey revealed that there are some notable shifts in the way Irish couples plan their weddings. According to the survey conducted by WeddingDates.ie, a staggering 83% of couples said the internet was their primary means of research for their wedding. Traditional wedding fairs lagged behind at a mere 45%, with referrals from friends and wedding magazines being more popular methods for sourcing information at 58% and 59% respectively.

This is no surprise to the internet entrepreneur behind WeddingDates.ie, Ciara Crossan who says “searching for what we need online is a huge part of our daily lives now and with the prevalence of smart phones this is only going to increase in the coming years.”

“Generation Z” or the Net Generation are those who were born between the early 1990’s and 2000 and they are the brides and grooms of the next 3 – 5 years. This generation is highly connected, many of them have had lifelong use of communications and media technologies and thus are used to instant access to information.

“WeddingDates.ie is the only website that provides real-time information on wedding venue availability all over the country – allowing time poor couples to effectively plan their wedding day with the mimimum of hassle.”
Future brides and grooms are also using social networking giant Facebook for specific aspects of their day, with 57.2% of those surveyed saying that they use Facebook for wedding related tasks. According to Facebook, there are over 55,000 people in Ireland over the age of 18 who are engaged; this presents a huge opportunity for hotels and other wedding suppliers to target and interact with their prospective customers on this medium.

Crossan who’s facebook page was recently a finalist for Best Facebook Page of a Business in the Irish Web Awards knows the value of interaction online. “Businesses can really bring their brands to life on social media, and appear friendly, approachable and engage with their users in a meaningful way.”

Other findings from the survey include:

63.75% of brides had favourite websites or blogs that they visited regularly when planning their wedding.
47% of couples felt that the location was the most important factor when choosing a venue, with 44% rating the reputation as a deciding factor and 41% being price led.
Civil weddings have gained ground and nearly 20% of those surveyed are having a civil ceremony instead of the traditional church affair.

For more detailed results, download the survey here.

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