Love wins over weather
Every train and plane we climbed on, we were told to get off, as they weren’t able to go anywhere.
Ex-Amanzimtoti local Heath Bateman could have been forgiven for thinking the gods were conspiring against his fairy-tale wedding to his sweetheart Aine Kilgannon.
Their wedding was set for a 1.30pm start on 3 March at the Church of Perpetual Succour Dromore West in Sligo, Ireland. Unfortunately for the pair, at the same time the ‘Beast from the East’ – a hectic weather system – combined with storm Emma to create absolute snow chaos across the United Kingdom.
The first hiccup to their grand day disturbed their bliss on the Wednesday before their wedding when Heath, who is the son of longtime Toti locals Gordon and Bev Bateman, had his flight cancelled after a four-hour delay.
Undeterred, he booked more flights to Shannon for the following day for himself, his parents and brother, who had already travelled to the UK from South Africa for the special day. “We had hoped to spend a day or two touring Galway, a harbour city on Ireland’s west coast, before the wedding,” said Gordon.
On the Thursday, the gods had another snigger when Heath’s flight to Shannon and Aine’s flight to Dublin were both cancelled. Unable to hire a car to drive there due to the extensive snowfalls, it seemed like their next best bet was to catch a ferry. The earliest one they could find was leaving at 2pm on the Friday.
The couple and their wedding party of 25, including many of their friends from Toti, arrived at London’s Euston Train station at 6am to catch the train to Holyhead port in Wales. It didn’t look good though, as all the trains out of Euston were cancelled and there was no way they could drive to Holyhead.
Fortunately the train to Wales did depart but the gods had the last laugh when two hours into the journey, they were told that all ferries from Holyhead had been cancelled.
“Every train and plane we climbed on, we were told to get off, as they weren’t able to go anywhere,” said Gordon. “We were starting to get desperate by then.” Faced with all these dilemmas, the couple did not lose hope and insisted they would get to the church on time.
When they finally made it to Holyhead, the captain said he would try and leave by 5am the next morning. “He was fantastic. They gave us free accommodation and food but the next morning the wind was too strong for the ferry to leave the quay,” said Gordon. “The captain tried again at 6am, with no luck. We finally left Holyhead at 7.15am and arrived in Dublin at 12.15pm.
We made it to the venue, Kilronan Castle which Heath had hired for their wedding at 3.15pm, more than two hours after the nuptials were to begin. The staff were awesome and they allowed the wedding to go ahead. The priest managed to drive to the castle and got there at 6pm which is when the wedding finally got underway.
“The wedding was fantastic – worth every hassle we had to go through to get there,” said Gordon. “It was a three-day party – a typical Irish wedding. We eventually got to the dancefloor at about 10.30pm and partied until 4am. Then the next day we all met for lunch and had another party.” Which just goes to show that no matter what obstacles life throws at you, love will always find a way.
