Welbeck Wedding Reminiscses

To be honest with you, I've been a little short on interesting material to blog about lately but last weekend Mr. & Mrs. Kevin & Abi Sutton booked in to celebrate their wedding anniversary having held their wedding reception here at The Welbeck Hotel in 1997.

It was great to see them here again, though I'm afraid I had to confess that my 50 year old brain failed to ignite my memories of their day which was a little disappointing.

As most of you will probably know, we are unable to do the full wedding packages now as we have no separate function room, though we are still be able to host small wedding breakfasts should anyone wish to book one.

Hilda and Sara Denver inspect the top table (Mum still is our gardener and Sara has now been here 22 years.)

I have to admit that I don't really miss holding functions, except for the weddings which although were really hard graft were very satisfying and enjoyable.

The return of the Suttons reminded me of one late Summer and early Autumn period when I seemed to recall doing there being a marriage for us to help celebrate nearly every week. I idly wondered if I was actually just imagining how many we did, so I dug out the 1999 diary and there were seven on consecutive Saturdays.

Happily, I know that at least two of the couples are still together as Mandy Clarke does Irene's eyebrows and Lynne and Glen Maloney have recently been here for Sunday lunch.

In fact Glen & Lynne's big day is probably the most memorable of all of them, as it was definitely the toughest due to the fact that our chef at the time, Stuart Murphy, dragged my mother and father and the head housekeeper, Marie Cassidy all of to London for his brother's wedding and the hotel was also fully booked.

Despite the fact that Irene also had our four children to look after as well as working and I was on duty from 5am until 3am the following day without as break, somehow we coped and the whole experience was fantastic even if at times we were hanging on by the seat of our pants.

We also had some staff tying the knot at the here, though sadly they weren't all to stay the course. I hope Marion and Andy don't mind me showing the photograph below on a blog and it was great to see Madeline the other week who was over from Ireland meeting another former Welbeck employee, Marie.

Of course, Irene and I also had our evening buffet and dance at the Hotel and as yet she hasn't filed for divorce. However, I'm probably lucky in that respect especially as I made the worst possible start to our formal partnership when I abandoned my blushing bride half way through the festivities and walked home without saying a word to anyone!

I'll try and dig out a picture of us and scan it later.