CHRISTMAS has become the time to get engaged - especially for emigrants home for the holidays and the trend is to go for a miniholiday before announcing the big news, presumably to build up stamina for all the engagement celebrations.
New York based psychiatrist Jennifer Hoblyn came home to Dublin for Christmas with long time beau Patrick Meade sporting a very impressive sparkler. Meath man Patrick, who is a vice president of Christie's auction house in New York, whisked Jennifer down to super trendy South Beach in Miami in December and proposed.
The pair met in Dublin four years ago through a mutual friend and for two years had a long distance court ship before Jennifer moved to the US. According to Jennifer the year will be dominated by even more long distance to-ing and fro-ing - the wedding is set to take place in, Dublin at the end of the year.
The most stylish wedding this year is bound to be during the summer when fashion stylist Helen Cody, marries high flying telecommunications expert Patrick Cruise O'Brien. The pair flew to New York in December where Patrick (whose father is Conor Cruise O'Brien) popped the question, and they spent Christmas celebrating the announcement with friends and family in Dublin.
PR woman Clodagh Maguire and insurance man Gordon McDonogh flew to Milan in early December and announced their engagement to friends and family back in Dublin down a crackly phoneline. The pair, who met over a year ago in the Horseshoe Bar in the Shelbourne Hotel, plan a July wedding.
Also in the throes of planning a wedding is Joan Dalton. (She was more familiarly known as Jo when she was married to actor John Hurt.)
After their December engagement Joan is to marry film executive and publisher Darragh Owens in March, in a ceremony in her home town in Pennsylvania. Darragh, son of advertising guru Peter Owens, met Joan through friends and the pair plan on househunting in Dublin in the spring.