Such ructions at a wedding! I was sure we were a bit of an afterthought anyway. Nuala Costigan was waving her invitation around the shop two weeks before we got ours. And I’d say we only got ours when some of the other people left out had their noses way more out of joint than us and must have kicked up. Then I got this email from Una Hoban. “Oh Ann, I don’t know HOW you got left out. My daughter said they were working off an old version of the list.”

The guest list for the wedding of Lacey Hoban to Fachtna McCluskey. The first “Big Money Wedding” since COVID. When our invitation finally arrived, it was definitely different quality to the one Nuala Costigan was waving. Her one was so embossed, it was practically 3-D.

“I don’t know whether we’ll go or not,” I said to Denis. “I don’t want to be anyone’s afterthought.” Says Denis, “But shur afterthoughts are the best thoughts. Anyway, I want to see what they’ve done to Drumoogle Castle.”

Drumoogle is after being bought by a Yank and is now a “destination venue”. “I remember when it was a destination for a bitta wacky baccie,” says Denis. The previous owner was one of these fallen earls. A second son of someone. You know the type. Prominent in amateur dramatics.

There was no shortage of dramatics when we got the Drumoogle. Fire eaters greeting us. A red carpet that was longer than the road to Drumfeakle. Three types of buns to go with the fizzy wine.

EIGHT Bridesmaids. “Weddings by Jean-Paul” doing the wedding planning. And yet for all that money, not a single soul spotted the thing that caused all the ructions.

Ructions

I was three glasses of prosecco in, talking away to bate the band to some auctioneer-type about cuckoo funds -don’t you know the way you’d be at a wedding- when Denis came over. “C’mere Ann tis a howl.”

He brought me over to the entrance to the La Chastelain Suite (‘Le Chastelain’ I know!). There on a stand was a big gold framed table plan and already gathered around it were a few people laughing. “Have a look what table we’re on Ann.”

I was half-confused at first, there were so many tables. They all had names. Top of the Pops, Kissing Cousins, We Are Family and so on, and then I went looking for me and Denis. “Look at the name of the table Ann.”

I read it. “Miscellaneous Table 1. Oh Denis!”

“We should be glad Ann. There’s five of them.” Sure enough, another neighbour came up. Patsy Donnegan. “How come ye got into Miscellaneous 1 Denis? We’re in number five. The bottom of the barrel.”

We had a right old laugh. The word went around during the dinner. The Hoban-McCluskeys had sent “the wrong version of the word document” to the printers who just printed what they saw. This is what they were calling us “internally”. I looked up at the top table. The faces were thunder. There were a few streaks of mascara and not from joy.

At the disco, Denis went up to the DJ for a request. “This is for all the people at Miscellaneous 1 to 5.” says DJ Quicksilver. Shur he hadn’t a clue. The song starts off. “Hey Hey Hey HEYYYY.”

“What song is this Denis?”

“You know it alright.” And sure enough, when I heard, “DON’T YOU … FORGET ABOUT ME” by Simple Minds, the jig was up. The dance-floor was full of Miscellaneous Table veterans. Having our own hooley within the wedding. All the odds and sods of Kilsudgeon.

They brought on “New York New York” then after for the bit where everyone goes in a circle and tries to kick the happy couple, but we were gone off to the pub before it closed. We’d already put the boot in.