Pule Mofokeng Photography

Pule Mofokeng Photography: 

Stunning photos of a "Traditional wedding" in South Africa! I stumbled upon this blog and had to share!!  Click on the link above to see the rest of these amazing photographs. 

Births, Engagements & Weddings ... oh yes and Divorces

Births:

Seems like something in the water at the moment, you walk around Dublin and every second woman is pregnant, and yet this country was the hardest hit in the recession and we are still worse off than most European countries, except uh maybe Greece ... however, we suddenly are having the highest birth rate.  This is due to the fact that Ireland have some strong employment laws, with all the redundancies taking place in most companies, they can not make you redundant if you are out sick or on Maternity leave - so what do most woman do, fall pregnant!  And then yes while they are out for the 9 - 12 months having their baby, they fall pregnant again and the cycle just goes on and on and puts the country deeper in debt.  I agree to having 2 kids because you are replacing the population, but more than that ... why?  Surely people have noticed that the world is so over populated already, or maybe not are we so selfish that we only think of our wants and needs?

Engagements


So my good friend "Bob" finally did it, on holiday in Italy with his girlfriend Aoife, who I really like and he decided to pop the question!  I'd say about time as Bob is 33 and not getting any younger, so last night while we were out celebrating Trish's wedding, it was just wedding talk - Bob thinks he can probably get away with only spending about €10 - €15K on a big wedding .... I think he may be in for a rude awakening, has no one told him what things cost in this country!  In actual fact it is absolutely ridiculous the amount of money that gets spent on weddings in this country, I told him to elope or going and get married in some 3rd world country where it will cost you a fraction of what you would pay here.

Weddings

Yes we were out celebrating Trish's wedding last night, with a wonderful dinner at "Fallon & Byrne", so Trish is doing the sensible thing and running off to Rome to get married, just her Seamie and mom & dad ... very, very wise I say!  All the old crew from the "society" were there, some of them actually still working there, so it was a great catch up and really had a wonderful evening (considering I didn't really want to go).  I had to rush off at 12:50 before they locked up the parking garage where I was parked and I just made it!  Oh yes forgot to mention that Trish is going to one of my favourite places for her honeymoon - Sorrento, told her she has to do a trip over to the Isle of Capri and the blue grotto.

Divorces

It most cases it has been the man's fault, especially in the celebrity world, I mean look at Tiger Woods, Ashley Cole and now sweet and innocent (not), Wayne Rooney, who I only recently said of  to my mother in law "his about the nicest down to earth player of them all" but yet he has a thing for prostitutes and was even inviting woman back to his bodeaur (spelling) on his stag night ... despicable.
Yet in my world it seems to be the woman who are unhappy with the men and deciding to just up and walk out of marriages that have lasted between 10 and 20 years, and the reasons ... "I never loved him", "his too old", OMG surely when you get married in the first place you know these thing, if he wasn't too old for you when you married him, why exactly is he too old now, did he age more rapidly than you ... one day you too will be too old, and that younger man you have now fallen in love with, will leave you for a younger woman ... I always believe "what goes around, comes around".

Mr Damo & Dr Tam's wedding

Wow, what a wedding the whole week had been such a rush with things going on that by Thursday both D and I were exhausted, we arrived at the hotel about 15 minutes before the bus was leaving for the Castle, so we had to hurry - we had dropped Cormac off at his B& B and said we would see him at 2, however when we got to the hotel they told us that the bus was leaving at 1:45, so D phoned Cormac and told him to Gigga, he wasn't sure what that meant but go the just of it.

We arrived at the Castle and were ushered into a little Chapel down from the castle, there were 3 guys serenading everyone. The ceremony was supposed to start at 2:30 but as brides are fashionably late, I think it only started at about 3. There were no hymns, no readings from the bible and the only religious aspect of the wedding was the fact that there was a bishop and he said a prayer.

Tam's sister did a reading from Captain Corelli's Mandolin:

Captain Corelli's Mandolin

Louis de Bernieres

Love is a temporary madness,

It erupts like volcanoes and then subsides.

And when it subsides you have to make a decision.

You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together

that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.

Because this is what love is.

Love is not breathlessness,

it is not excitement,

it is not the promulgation of eternal passion.

That is just being "in love" which any fool can do.

Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away,

and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.

Those that truly love, have roots that grow towards each other underground,

and when all the pretty blossom have fallen from their branches,

they find that they are one tree and not two.

The ceremony was soon over and we all left to go up to the castle, for a champagne reception while the Bride, Groom and family had their photos taken. The three guys that had serenaded everyone going into the church, were now doing renditions of Metallica, Queen and Britney spears - there songs ranged from classical to heavy metal they were absolutely brilliant.

Everything was perfect, we eventually went through to the reception area at about 5:30, the meal was awesome and once the meal was finished the speeches started which were far from boring. They then cut the cake and the first dance was a ballad from Metallica. Well very un-traditional and wonderful.
We eventually got back to the hotel at about 3:00 am and then of course it was an ABF with friends before we went up to bed, so needless to say I think we crawled into bed at about 4 a.m. after the best time I have had in a very very long time!!! No doubt the bride and groom will just be happy forever!

The groom and his mates

Well as the big Wedding day approaches on Thursday, I found this picture on Owen's website: http://owenhiggins.xanga.com/ , do you think the Groom looks nervous (his the one on the left) naaaa, it's all a piece of cake, by the way Owen is the best man and we are guests!!!!

Weddings

Yay, at last our 2nd wedding invitation in 7 years, when we first arrived in Ireland we were invited to Derrick's boss's wedding down in Kilkenny and now we have been invited to my friend Damien's wedding in October, I'll say it will be awesome - They are getting married at Darver Castle and with D's new Camera I'd say we'll get some nice photos, so watch this space ...

To have and to hold, from this day forth ...

Owen had this on his blog and I just had to share it with everyone: