Scotland, by comparison is kind of like the Las Vegas of Europe. It really is the easiest place to get married over the pond. And so began the romantic online search for a castle venue. After a few false starts, we finally found Dornoch, a cozy little historic town north of Inverness, where they happen to have both a castle and a cathedral just waiting to be used by a bunch of brash Americans! (And us, too!) We e-mailed all the appropriate people, settled on a date and now we're in the home stretch of the event and are set to have a marriage in a place we've never been to before, but, hey, if its good enough for Madonna, I guess it'll do for us too.

Originally we expected only a few die hard Jeff and Kristi fans to make the effort of getting over there. Much to our surprise, we have nearly 50 coming and have all but had to turn a few of them away for lack of space! Quite frankly, I'm shocked. But the more, the merrier they say, and we are delighted to have them join us.

Actually when we decided on getting hitched at Dornoch, we had no idea that Madonna had even gotten married again - least of all at the place we chose!

Most people ask "Why Scotland? Are you guys Scottish?" The answer is a fairly definite "No." Actually, with names like Murphy and Croke, we probably belong in the land of shamrocks and leprechauns. We originally wanted to get married in Ireland, but the beaurocratic requirements were rather daunting. For one, we would have needed to establish residency in Ireland (a mere two weeks in the country before the marriage does it!) That wasn't really in the budget, however, the required Papal blessing - available at your local religious store down the street - probably was. (And, no I'm not kidding on either count)