Did You Know? Kathryn Hazen

PartnerSource Team Coordinator Kathryn Hazen planned her 2021 wedding from 1,500 miles away. She and her fiancé, Ryan, had moved to Texas, but wanted to do their nuptials in front of Kathryn’s friends and family in her native New York. The stress of planning a wedding – even for an organized bride – is a lot, especially when that wedding is during a pandemic and far away from where you currently reside.

To help manage the workload and the stress, Kathryn called on teamwork from her fiancé, Ryan. She asked him to plan the honeymoon and not involve her. She didn’t know where they would be headed, and she came to find out that some very special guests were also going to tag along.

So, where did the happy couple go?

“We went to Ireland, actually! It was a wonderful time. We spent 10 days just going to different sites around Ireland,” Kathryn said.

And the special guests? None other than the bride’s parents!

“Funny enough, this goes back to when I was maybe or 5 or 6 years old. My parents and I were watching something on television about an exotic destination like Hawaii for honeymoons. I said I was going to Hawaii on my honeymoon and my parents said, ‘Can we come along with you?’ and I said absolutely, you can! Little did I know that my parents would actually come with us on our honeymoon.”

When Kathryn’s now-husband Ryan planned their honeymoon, he knew that her parents were also planning a trip to Ireland. He also knew how much it would mean for the family to be together. Also, the thought of being on an organized group trip meant that all the planning was done.

“My husband was like, aww, you know, I think this is what we’ve got to do. It was nice because it was all done for us; we had an itinerary we stuck to, we had meals planned out and that took away a lot of the stress of everything!” Kathryn said.

Kathryn and Ryan enjoyed touring Ireland along with her parents and the tour group. They explored Blarney Castle, walked the Cliffs of Moher, and enjoyed sailing out to the Aran Islands, in addition to many other sights.

“We spent two days on the Aran Islands and it was just so beautiful and relaxing! You can only access the islands by boat. The locals were so nice and we had a little ocean view of the waves. That was probably my favorite place we saw on the trip, just to be there and take it all in.”

Kathryn was also moved to be in the country where her family was from, a place her grandmother had also visited. Kathryn lost her grandmother two months before the wedding.

“It was a dream of my mom’s to go because my great-great-grandparents came over from County Cork, Ireland, and my grandmother and her sisters visited in the mid-1990s. Honestly, my favorite part of being in Ireland was knowing that I was in the same place where my grandmother had been – that meant a lot to me,” she said.

“It was so nice! I would love to go back again!”