From devastation to pure love: Couple finds venue after hotel closes two days before wedding

Aimee Palmer and Cathal Nolan had spent two years planning their wedding but – after an unexpected phone call last week – had less than two days to find a new venue.Their original location, the Glasson Lakehouse in Co Westmeath, had to temporarily close last Wednesday after a norovirus outbreak. The couple was due to get married there on Friday. Nolan’s phone rang at about 3.30pm on Wednesday. It was a staff member from the hotel, confirming the venue was closed with immediate effect. The couple, both 30, are originally from Galway but live in Dublin. They had chosen Athlone as a midway point. About 150 people were expected to attend the wedding, including loved ones who had flown in from Australia. READ MORE“I thought it was a joke, then I ran downstairs to tell Aimee,” Nolan says of the phone call. “That hour and a half was horrific – just trying to cope with it and then figure out the next steps.”Palmer says the couple felt “pure devastation” and thought the wedding might not happen. “Are we still getting married? Realistically, it could be next year. It could be another two years before we get married.”After the initial shock wore off, Palmer says, the couple knew they wanted “to get married on Friday no matter what, even if it’s just the church and a meal, or we all come back to our house in Dublin”.They told the bridal party what had happened and – once everyone realised it wasn’t a joke – people started calling venues in different counties to see if anywhere was available.“We actually got engaged on April Fool’s Day, so we said it all feels quite fitting,” Palmer laughs.Aimee Palmer and her husband, Cathal Nolan, got married in Galway. Photograph: Syona Photography Her cousin contacted the Salthill Hotel in Galway and, before long, the venue called her back to say they could host the wedding on Friday. “It actually felt like a knight in shining armour coming to save us, my shoulders completely dropped,” Palmer says.A church was sorted within five minutes. Nolan’s grandmother Maureen just had to make one phone call.“That was the easiest part. My granny reads Mass every weekend and does a lot of work in [St Ignatius Church] in Galway,” he says.Glasson Lakehouse, Co Westmeath. [ Alternative venues found for couples due to have weddings at norovirus-hit Westmeath venueOpens in new window ]Salthill Hotel has a special significance for Palmer’s family.“My parents got married there in 1988, and then my sister got married there in 2022,” she explains.“So, we were kind of laughing, saying, ‘Look, Aimee, you could have just booked it in the first place if you wanted to end up here, avoiding all this drama.’” Within a few hours last Wednesday, everything came together.“Honestly, we got the call at 3.30pm and by maybe 6.30pm nearly everything was in place,” Palmer says. The couple was also able to secure Blackrock Cottage for a day-two celebration and O’Gradys on the Pier for a dinner the night before the wedding, as well as accommodation for their guests. Aimee Palmer and Cathal Nolan celebrate their wedding in Galway. Photograph: Syona Photography All 153 guests were able to attend as planned. Priests, musicians, and the hair and make-up team all changed plans to make sure they could be there. “Every single one of them came to Galway, and it was no questions asked,” Palmer says.The fact that everything worked out so quickly “really felt like” the couple was always supposed to get married in Galway, she adds. “Everything just felt very serendipitous that the universe just wanted us to get married in Salthill, really.”Even the weather played ball.“We had our Child of Prague in training, thinking he’d be in the midlands, but we woke up on Friday morning and the sun was shining over Blackrock. We heard it was raining pretty much everywhere else in the country,” Palmer says.Speaking from their honeymoon in Sorrento, she says the couple was “blown away” by the hospitality shown by the people who stepped up in their “hour of need”. She says Salthill Hotel, in particular, “couldn’t have done enough for us, they went above and beyond”.Palmer says it felt like “the whole of Galway”, as well as their families and friends, rallied behind them.“I don’t think we have ever or will ever feel love like we did those past few days. The energy across the whole weekend was something I’d never felt before ...“We were dealt a very unlucky hand but we feel, coming out of that weekend, that we are the luckiest people.”A second wedding was due to take place at Glasson Lakehouse last weekend; this couple also found a new venue. It is understood that the luxury hotel will reopen in the coming days.[ Tenerife wedding planner that closed suddenly says those chasing money are ‘wasting’ their timeOpens in new window ]