(T  minus 158 days to the big gay wedding)

Well you know what the saying is…

We believe we struck liquid gold.  So we are taking in to account the corkage fee, and cost of the wine and our bottom line budget etc etc etc and we budgeting €XX for wine.

THEN Tesco go and make us very happy but having a sale on which included 25% off if you buy 6 bottles or more. We love Tesco. I bought 84 bottles of wine and easily saved 50% of our wine budget. In fact We saved so much we spent the difference on the bubbly.  So given the current economic issues and blah blah blah it is cheaper to buy wine in Souther Ireland than Norther Ireland belive it or not, and taking in to count oil prices, exchange prices blah blah blah – it is more cost effective to purchase the booze in R.O.I and we are also helping our economy not to mention the club card points.

So lets discuss …

84 bottles of wine for €252.

42 bottles of bubbly € 315.

We are also paying corkage on top of the cost above, which is just as much as much as what our total spend on booze is (madness) so we are trying to make sure that we can supply booze at a decent cost at a decent volume and at a decent taste for most pallets.

This is more than enough for the alloted normal share per person at a wedding for which we are catering. So thankfully we can say there is that few drops more if needs be – its better to be safe than sorry.

SO when it came to the wine, yours truly had to go in to his local Tesco store and “discuss” with the stock manager ordering in our supply of wine. The poor man looked so bewildered and to be fair to him last thing on a Thursday you don’t expect a local half clothed gay man to arrive in and order enough vino to take down a small local Bettie Ford clinic.

Alas – we got our order in, paid for up front, and delivery due less than a week away.

Side note: The offer for 25% off was ending on 3rd May and the wine was ordered on 28th April.

I am sober, I am calm, the wine will arrive!

THEN

We just happen to be in Tesco on May 2nd and decide to pick up a “few” bottles of wine and bubbly as a good day would (you can mix and match for the 25% offer) and we got this bottle which was  D.I.V.I.N.E. It’s Oceans Edge and It’s a Sauv Blanc from the Marlborough in New Zealand. Oh god it’s just heaven! This was the first and only bottle which we both together without knowing or saying anything unanimously agreed on with the first mouth full !

So now imagine two slightly sun kissed homo’s panic buying in every local Tesco store to ensure they get their supply before the offer expires.

We got to 3 different stores – we cleared out 2 shops of their stock – and the 3rd shop had just closed.

As I write this we currently have 16 bottles in stock and only ONLY need another 26 with less than 1 day to go before the offer expires.

As I write this I am slightly tipsy, you can blame those lovely folks in New Zealand, it’s all their fault for making Oceans Edge so divine !

Can’t wait for the club card points in the post.

Alas Ireland is catching up with the world. It’s been 17 years since homosexuality has been decriminalised, thankfully I am too young to remember what it was like before this, and I am truly thankfull to all those who have fought hard for those of us gays who demand equality back then, now, and going forward from here on.

SO I was delighted to hear that the first same sex cermony happened today, and there are another 267 (and counting) including my own to be performed before the end of the year. I personally know of 7 same sex couples (no lesbians as yet) who are going to tie the knot. How fab !

Now – if only suppliers of weddings etc would inch forward with the times. I will refer back to my previous posts about my invite trauma, cake toppers trauma . Now lets take the invites for just one second.

So I got a quote for some invites in the Daintree on Camden Street. 100 invites, 100 RSVP’s and 50 evening invitations. That came to a total of €350 – which I believe to be on the lower side of the market.

So I am rounding up here became I feel that 350 is a little low for most people  €400 x 267 couples = €106,800 – now correct me if I am wrong but in todays economic climate I’m sure most stationary shops would be thrilled even for a small % in this gay pic.

When it gets to cake toppers – average figure of  €100 per set – again is €26,700 – again I’m sure those shops I visited in Dublin’s fair city would love a small or large piece of that pie – instead of asking people to accept sub standard etc.

While we have moved forward legislatively, from a historical point of view it would appear that suppliers still see weddings as a heterosexual event when it comes to the staple norms that you would need to host a wedding.

For example – lets look at honeymoons.

Walking past lots of travel agencies you seen signs for places like Maurits and Bahamas and Dubai and so on and so forth, but how many travel agencies go or would go and research how many of these countries have laws saying homosexuality is a crime and punishable.  How much is the average honeymoon – lets say €5000, that’s 5000 x 267  which is over 1.3 millon Euro – now tell me how many struggling travel agencies would salivate over numbers like that on their books, as yet I’ve not seen any.

What about suit hire – I noticed that Blacktie had a sign in their window on Baggot Street last night which said “Groom’s suit free”. I can’t wait to go in and quiz them to see what happens where there are two grooms! Actually I’ve not seen them or other bridal / groom attire stores advertise for same sex partnerships. How much is a brides suit go for these days, infact how much would two cost? I know Tom is looking to spend a few hundred more than I want on his suit, let alone two of them, and if we were to factor in the wedding party … niche and unexplored market here suppliers, get with the program!

Just saying Pink Pound people !

He is the love of my life the light of my fridge. He drives me insane some times but hey that’s ok. I affectionately call him Husbear and I love listening to his wee northern accent, unlike my flat Dublin one. He’s ten years my senior and we are always being told that we look alike and that there in pictures we look like before and after some sort of late night party of sorts.