Rosemarie Meleady, founder of www.weddingplanner.ie
MY HUSBAND does the breakfasts and gets the children out to school, so all I have to do is get up and out to the office, an hour away. Once I'm here the first couple of hours are spent reading and responding to e-mails. I spent most of this morning dealing with an Irish couple who want to get married in Sicily and a couple from Boston who want to get married in Scotland.
Italy is still the most popular wedding destination for Irish people, typically because of Rome and the Catholic link, but civil weddings in Tuscany are very popular now, too. We're also seeing a rise in interest in Malta, not just because it is Catholic but because it has no residency requirements.
Answering queries is the biggest part of my day, so that will take me up until noon, at which point I start thinking about writing stories to put on the website. I'm also finishing the first of a series of e-books, about castle wedding options.
For lunch I have soup at my desk, then go walking for half an hour with the other staff in the office. It's a fast walk, intended as exercise, but we chat all the way around.
We're back by two o'clock, and that's normally when I start calling travel agents, looking for quotes and starting the booking process. Today I was ringing Gozo [ a Maltese island] for much of the afternoon, trying to sort out accommodation for a party of 200 getting married there in June. Logistically it's a big exercise because people keep calling to change dates and flights or organise car hire. I've also got to liaise with the photographer, make-up artist and florist on the ground.
Because of the time difference, inquiries from the US start coming in after lunch so I have to deal with them. Handling Americans who want to get married here is usually easier, not least because the parties involved are much smaller.
I usually leave the office at about 6.30pm, and the joy of having a house husband is that dinner is cooked and there's a glass of wine waiting for me when I get home.
I've two kids, and once the homework is done I'll usually go online for an hour, either to research something I've had an inquiry about or to update my blog. The internet is a great source of story ideas. I recently came across a woman whose wedding cake was a life-size version of her. I mentioned it on my blog, and, strangely enough, some people thought it was a great idea. I also came across a shop in the US that had a sign on the door saying "closed due to the fact that my daughter is marrying that good-for- nothing waste of space today". I love that.
If it's a Tuesday I do everything slightly earlier, so I can watch Desperate Housewives. Either way I'm in bed by 11 o'clock.