New York, New York!

Firstly, Happy Valentine's Day from both of us!  

We've had a fantastic day so far.  Michael thankfully has the weekend off so we were able to wake up together and exchange our gifts.  We're both self-confessed "haters" of Valentine's Day, but somehow always manage to spoil each other every year!  We started the day off on a high with bunches of red roses, red velvet cake and chocolates for breakfast and Michael announced that he'd bought us steaks for dinner and that he'd be cooking - yay!

We wanted to do something a little special to mark our first Valentine's Day as an engaged couple - so figured we'd do something related to the wedding. We decided to head out into the cold and visit a few travel agents to get some quotes for flights to New York. The plan was to shop around a little and get some quotes and maybe put down a deposit and come back later to pay them off.  Our plans were dashed a little when the first travel agent broke the news to us that if we were booking flights only we would have to pay the whole amount upon time of booking. Annoying.

The first quote we got was great, about £200 cheaper than I had priced myself online, but we were still a little short on the whole amount so we had to walk away.  The second travel agent however was able to offer us an even cheaper deal on the flights - and as luck would have it - we had exactly enough cash with us and we were able to pay them off straight away.  

So, it's official - we're going to NEW YORK and LAS VEGAS this DECEMBER! 

No going back now - we have our seats booked on the plane and we're officially getting married in New York City!!  

We have our hotels booked provisionally on booking.com and we're really happy with the hotels we've chosen.  I'll probably still keep an eye out on deals coming out throughout the year, so can change hotels if and when we want as our bookings are all free to cancel or change.  We managed to get the exact dates we wanted so we're spending Christmas in New York City and flying out to Las Vegas to celebrate our honeymoon over New Years Eve.

We'll be leaving for NYC on the 21st December 2015 and will be returning to Belfast on 3rd January 2016 (my Motherbear's birthday - her new son-in-law can be her present HA)  We'll have just less than a week to prepare ourselves for our Reception in Malone Lodge Hotel on 9th January before settling into married life as Mr and Mrs Archer :) Champagne to celebrate tonight! We've been jumping for joy all day - can't believe we're booked!!

Save The Date

Michael and I had these little Save The Date cards printed so that we could hand them out to our friends at our Engagement Party as a wee reminder to put the date of our post-wedding celebration in their diaries!  The date we have booked is 9th January 2016 and we're having an immediate family dinner in the Knife and Fork Restaurant before a party in the new Deramore Suite in the Malone Lodge Hotel, Belfast. We're so excited!!

Keep an eye on the blog for updates of when hotel rooms will be made available!  Hopefully we'll be able to get a special rate sorted for those coming over from the UK / those who just want to make a night of it! Bridal Suite for us, please!

 

 

 

Engagement Cards & Gifts

Thank you everyone.

 I took a pic of all our lovely cards before putting them all away in our keepsake box :)

The Morning After the Engagement Party

Last night we finally got round celebrating our Engagement with our friends. With January being a notoriously penniless month, we waited until Pay Day weekend before planning anything. We really didn't want to make too much of a fuss, it was mainly an excuse to get everyone together for dinner and a few drinks as it's getting increasingly more difficult for all of us to get out these days!  Which is why we were extremely touched that we managed to gather 22 of our closest friends together for a meal. This being the case, we wanted to go somewhere really free and easy with a huge table that would seat us all, so we chose Cosmo in Victoria Square, Belfast.  

We've all had birthdays and other events there before and they've always been good fun. As it's a buffet restaurant it meant we didn't have to wait for 22 meals to be prepared; we were able to just get stuck right in. With everyone constantly moving about to get more food it was easier for Michael and I to get chatting to everyone than it would have been if we were seated throughout the whole meal. 22 people was a lot to work with and it got quite stressful at times, especially when it came to deciding where to go afterwards! 

One thing I always forget, is how damn hard it is to perk up to go drinking after you've had an absolutely massive dinner.  We all had food babies by the end of it, and if everyone was anything like me, all we could think about was going home to sleep it off!  But we soldiered on and braved the freezing cold January weather and walked to The Hudson for a couple drinks. It being Saturday night, the bar was full so we were all forced to sit outside under the heat lamps. The beer garden was a bit of a wind-tunnel and it wasn't long before we were all completely frozen solid and had to go elsewhere.  

We walked around the corner to Whites Tavern with the promise of a roaring open fire to warm our hands and feet on!  As it turned out, the fire wasn't lit but the bar was cosy warm and our spirits were lifted immediately as we started to heat up.  Our numbers had dwindled slightly by this point as some people had to go home for work the next morning etc etc.  The wine and food mixture soon got the better of us and the rest of us decided to call it a night around midnight. The remainder of us jumped into taxis and headed back to our house for a "nightcap".

Michael and I stopped to pick up some alcohol from a friend's (who decided to get out of their PJ's and come back to our house too!) on the way home and left my sister off while we were at it.  When we got home there was a group of our friends dancing with their legs crossed on our front lawn so there was a queue for the bathroom while I went around and frantically tried to make sure the house was tidy enough for guests! The nightcap quickly turned into raiding the drinks cabinet and cracking open Cards Against Humanity until 6am.  It served a good purpose though; we are glad to get all the alcohol out of the house so we can detox during our bid to become hermits for the next few months!