Wife Carrying Championships

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:

1. Best Video/Video Campaign for our rugby vid and our bridal blog
2. Best Online PR Campaign for the Wife Carrying Tour
3. 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!

Click on Image to read full piece

The Irish Examiner and journalist Eoin English has been so supportive of WeddingDates.ie and our mad cap adventure to the Wife Carrying Tour, he gave us another great piece after we let him know we won in Finland!  Some great pics included too…

The epic  journey over – 7 countries in 7 days, we finally reached Finland and managed to pick Ruaidhri up a wife on a night out in Helsinki!!

You have no idea how happy and excited all 4 of us were when we arrived in Sonkajarvi in Finland after travelling across Europe to get there!  Of course the local Finnish were super welcoming as always, special thanks to Anna Huttunen and Laura and Outi our “minders”.

We competed in every race we could, the Sprint on the Friday evening and then the Team Event/Relay on the Saturday morning and were delighted we came in 3rd place!  In the main event, James and I defended our title from last year, taking home “Most Entertaining Couple” again.  Ruaidhri and his Finnish “wife” Annuka did great aswell and we all had a blast.

The video will tell more of the hilarity than I ever could here, so watch on….

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
5 July, 2010

CONTACT:
Ciara Crossan
WeddingDates.ie
T: 021-4928993
M: 087-9577733
Email: ciara@weddingdates.ie

Through the water - James and Ciara

Irish Team return champions after World Wife Carrying in Finland

A group from Ireland have been touring through Europe for the past week to get to Finland for the Wife Carrying World Championships and are returning home this week after winning prizes in 2 out of the 3 races.
Ciara Crossan and James Kennedy were at the Wife Carrying event last year and won the prize for the “Most Entertaining Couple”, which they managed to defend again this year, by running the race in a full wedding attire – top hat and tails for James and wedding dress for Ciara.
“That is the hardest thing you will ever do!” James gasped after carrying Ciara around the 250m obstacle course which involved a water obstacle and 2 hurdles.
After travelling across 7 countries in Europe for the past 7 days to get to the Wife Carrying in Finland, Crossan is thrilled with the win saying, “It has been an epic journey and we are so happy to be coming home with the trophy after all of the support we have had from home.” Crossan, who runs Irish website, WeddingDates.ie has been documenting the teams lead up to the competition, filming the road trip and uploading daily videos to www.weddingdates.ie/wifecarrying and the Irish public have really gotten behind the one Irish team in a World Championships this summer!

The WeddingDates.ie team also retained their title of 3rd place in the Team event which is essentially a relay race, with three “husbands” passing the wife as a baton. Despite incurring a 10 second penalty for an error during the passing of the baton, the Irish still managed to come in 3rd and were delighted to have a podium finish. The team consisted of James Kennedy, Ruaidhri Martin, Paul Keville and Ciara Crossan.

The Irish participants really embody the spirit of the competition with Anna Huttunen, the event organiser saying, “the irish have the right attitude, come to compete with athleticism and also have a lot of fun!”
The top prize of the wife’s weight in beer was won by a Finnish couple who were also last years champions. Taisto Meitinnen claims to train by carrying his wife everyday in the months leading up to the competition. Their time was an impressive 1 minute 2 seconds.

Anyone interested in trying their hand at one of the most unusual sporting events in the world can go to the Irish Championships in Sneem, Co. Kerry on the 24th of July. Champions for the last 2 years, John O’Shea and Aoife Desmond are the ones to beat with a time of 1 minute 12 seconds at this years race. Check out www.sneemfestival.com for more details.

Team Ireland - 3rd place in the Relay Event

Official Rules of Wife Carrying:

• The length of the official track is 253.5 metres. Its surface is partially sand, grass and The track has two dry obstacles and one water obstacle, about a meter deep.
• The wife to be carried may be your own, the neighbour’s or you may have found her farther afield; she must, however, be over 17 years of age.
• The minimum weight of the wife to be carried is 49 kilos. If she weighs less, she will be burdened with a heavy rucksack to reach the desired minimum weight.
• The winner is the couple who completes the course in the shortest time.
• If a contestant drops his wife, the couple will be fined 15 seconds per a drop.

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Note to Editors: WeddingDates.ie [ http://www.weddingdates.ie ] is an Irish website that helps engaged couples search for wedding venues & suppliers available on their chosen wedding date. WeddingDates.ie proudly supported the Irish Wife Carrying Team in Finland.  Visit www.weddingdates.ie/wifecarrying for all the videos, photos and twitter updates from the tour.

Ruaidhri tore up the highway getting us through Sweden in record time to catch our 6am ferry to Finland.  Our body clocks are so messed up this stage, we don’t know if its night or day, breakfast time or dinner!!

A highlight of this journey was crossing the super bridge from Denmark to Malmo in Sweden.  At €78 to cross it in the campervan, it would want to have been good!

The ferry was also gorgeous and the memory of crossing the Baltic sea will stay with all of us for ever.

We had an absolute ball in Copenhagen, what an incredible city!  James loved the architecture and Ruaidhri tried his hand at finding a wife.  We ran amok on the city streets decked out in our wedding dress finery!!

Landed in Hamburg late after stopping to catch the World Cup match, and luckily found a campsite in the city centre.  It was right next to a McDonalds  So, Ruaidhri decided to introduce the first “food challenge” into the trip.

10 Hamburgers each.  The Hamburg Challenge!

Sunday, Day 4 of the epic roadtrip across Europe. Managed to finally get out of Belgium and into Germany just in time to watch the World Cup match and see the celebrations in Germany!  Crazy, fun times!

Well, after our fun on the Cork – Swansea ferry, we crossed Wales and the UK and managed to get a late train through the Eurotunnel into France.  Some crazy traffic jams, Friday evening around London on the M25 but we made it!

At this stage, we are getting used to life in the Campervan and each other!  It may not look it from the vid, but its very VERY hot!!