By six months prior to your wedding-week in Ireland, you should have narrowed down a few rental houses or venues to host your wedding and lodge your guests. Hopefully, you’ve found some venues that can double as lodging for all of your wedding guests. In any sense, you should explore every angle of the venues on your shortlist.

Read online reviews, contact previous tenants, explore photos of weddings at the property on Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram. Look up any wedding videos or tenant rentals on YouTube.

Imagine yourself getting married at each property. What does it look like? How does it make you feel? How much effort would need to go into hosting a wedding at the property? Do you have to pay to rent chairs, tables, table linens, or a tent? Would you have to source outside caterers, buy ice on the day-of the wedding, or purchase your own napkins?

Weigh the pros and cons of each property, make your decision, then BOOK IT!

Our decision to rent the Westcove House was made quite easy by its location, its roominess for all our guests, and its impressive oceanfront view. It also lended itself well to a laid-back and homey wedding, which further helped to keep our costs within budget.

We still had to purchase our own ice for beer buckets, our own disposable napkins, and rent chairs from a nearby church ($35). Our friends also chipped in to pickup the beer, the ice, set out the chairs and decorate for us. So, while there was some effort involved, it was well worth it!

We booked the house 6 months prior to the wedding week, but if you have more time — book this as soon as possible! We only had 2 weeks left of the warm weather to choose from, and my brother wasn’t available for one of the weeks. We were lucky to snatch up the remaining week; otherwise we would’ve had to postpone the wedding until the following summer!