2 Months Today

We're buzzing. We can't actually believe we're down to 2 months already.

 

Michael wondrously had a free weekend so we decided to go on a small adventure to celebrate 2 months to go.  We bundled into my car (Michael drove for once!) and took ourselves off to Castlewellan for a nice long walk around the lake.  Autumn is probably my favourite month - everything is so beautiful - and I took a thousand photographs of our surroundings.  We tried to snap a few selfies, but we still absolutely hate photographs of ourselves so those will probably never see the light of day.  I just don't know how we're going to cope with our wedding photographs - the panic rises more and more every day!  Michael bought a Nikon camera last Christmas and is yet to use it so he brought it along and snapped a few landscapes along the way, though, he's more interested in playing with light settings and long exposures so there was a lot of sitting around...waiting.  He took a few amazing long exposure shots of a waterfall at Bloody Bridge in Newcastle, so I guess the waiting was worth it - but I have him well warned that I am not standing around in New York waiting an hour for him to snap a million photographs of the same thing. No thanks!

 

That being said, we had a really lovely day, just the two of us kicking leaves about and chatting about our wedding.  We managed to get ourselves completely lost in the hedge Maze and a small troop of children decided to follow us as "knowing adults" who could help them find their way to the center.  Long story short, we never made it to the center of the maze. Totally gave up and focused on getting ourselves the hell out of there.  Mazes are not as fun as they look.  Seriously. Castlewellan is such a nice little town though, the locals are so polite and welcoming.  We were ushered in from the cold and into a lovely café where we were served the freshest cod and chips with a huge mug of builders tea each - perfect on a cold Autumn day! 

 

We called into Newcastle for ice cream in Grahams and the entire town was dressed for Halloween!  The girls in the ice cream shop told us that there was a competition for the best window display, and they really have gone all out!  The place looks great - we had to snap the "til death do us part" picture which was the window display in The Bon Bon (where we also bought sparklers, just because.)  Hopefully we'll get a few more days out before the wedding but as we move into November things will really start to get busy.   My calendar is absolutely filled throughout November and December.  Thankfully I had a few holidays left to take in work and managed to wangle myself every Monday off for the rest of 2015 - score!

 

The rest of invitations are going out this week;  keep your doggies away from the letter box!  As we're hand delivering the majority of them I have to sit on my hands and wait for an evening where Michael is free to come round the houses with me but I am impatient as sin (it's a wonder I didn't hand them out the day they arrived from America) but I think it's important that we do this together.  Maybe we could dress up and deliver them as trick or treaters and get some sweets out of it...there's a plan.  We could be a zombie bride and groom.  I'm going to go talk to Michael about this right now....

 

We're big Hallowe'en fans in our house - we've had our pumpkins carved since last weekend (unfortunately already rotten and in the bin....) and our little skull fairy lights have been lit since the start of the month.  Michael is on nights this Hallowe'en night though which sucks, so not sure if we'll get to celebrate like we usually would.  Our last Hallowe'en as an unmarried couple - next year it's all couple's costumes, my love! Mwaaahahahahaha.

 

 

New York, New York!

Our lives have turned into one giant countdown.

In 2 months to this day, at this exact time that I'm writing (11.10am) we'll be boarding our plane to Newark all being well.  Yesterday, on his day off, Michael got to work on an itinerary for our 7 days in New York City.  There is so much we need to squeeze in - but as they always say, you should leave some of the City to return and see another time.  Hopefully we'll be back to New York again, maybe with kiddies in tow to show them were their Mum and Dad were married!  That would be pretty cool. 

While we want to visit some of the tourist spots, we've specifically booked our hotel in Tribeca/Soho so that we can experience a little more of the city outside of the most popular areas.  We love the idea of wrapping up warm and exploring the back streets.  Michael has his Nikon SLR armed and ready for action (even though he has no idea how to use it) and has purchased a rather ridiculous tripod for it that he reckons he's going to traipse around with him.  Personally, I can't see it happening...

We've also started to look into New Year Eve plans in Las Vegas. It's going to be insane and very, very expensive.  All the clubs will be taken over by celebrity parties, and while I'd love to spend NYE partying with the Kardashians, I don't think we'd want to part with $500+ each for the privilege.  I think we'll need to pick somewhere and stick to it as moving about the Strip will be a nightmare as it'll be packed with over 300,000 people on the street alone. We'd love to find a rooftop bar or restaurant where we could get a great view of the fireworks at midnight - somewhere close to the Bellagio where we can see the fountains too.  Dividing our budget between New York and Vegas will be tricky!!

Cluck Cluck!

I woke up to an alert on my phone that told me it's exactly one month until my merry band of 10 hens flies over/drives up to Edinburgh! Edinburgh is one of my favourite places in the world and I can't wait to share it with my closest girlfriends.  It means so much that the girls have so readily agreed to join me, especially with it being so close to Christmas etc.  I know there has been serious amounts of sneaky planning also and it's killing me not to know what our activities are, but it's very, very exciting!

Michael and his group of Stag's are heading to Todd's Leap on the 5th December but I'm very much staying out of the plans on that one! :)

I've also a trip to Dublin booked for November as a second mini Hen with one of my fave friends Claire for a spot of Christmas Shopping. The plan is to raid Penneys for holiday clothes on the cheap! Can't wait!

November is going to be epic!

StressWeek2K15

My wedding dress is here - 3 months early! I got the phone call from Bernie at Perfect Day on Wednesday and she asked me to come in and collect it the following evening.  Seeing as my Mum and Sister have decided to be total dingbats as of late, I had to venture out to Lurgan on my own to pick it up.  A bittersweet moment, twirling around in front of the fitting room mirror on my own. Thanks to Sober October I couldn't even accept the champagne I was offered, so I got to take a bottle home to celebrate with in November.

This week has been the very first week where things have started to go wrong.  To be honest, it's been other people's issues rather than ours but it's added stress that we shouldn't have to deal with so late on in the plans.  I've met various people on numerous trips to Costa throughout this week to listen to drama and straighten out issues and it's been tough to deal with.  There have been tears and tantrums (the very first since planning started) and it's been really disheartening.  Adding insult to injury, our flights home from Vegas were cancelled so we had to rework our itinerary and our plans in order to fit around new flights (we get an extra day in Vegas though so every cloud etc...) Invitations are in the process of being sent out - we're hand delivering the majority of them so we're currently doing the rounds - and as long as everyone makes the effort to RSVP we'll be happy campers. 

It's about time that a bad week came along, so we're hoping that next week will be brighter. This week has shown me who really has our backs when things start to go wrong - it's been an eye opener for sure - it's always the people you least expect! Michael has officially caught the lurgy so he's out of action with a bad case of Man Flu.  I expect to be dosed up myself any minute now!  Been trying to keep my distance, but this week we've been extra soppy and clingy to each other! #woeisus 

In happy news though, we applied for our US Visa Waivers today (accepted, woo!) as well as our Marriage License through the City Clerks Office in Manhattan, New York. It's exactly 70 days until we fly out to America and it just cannot come quick enough!  We've spent this weekend catching up with Michael's parents which has been lovely - lots of tea and cakes which always cheers us up :) Sober October is going well, I'm enjoying being the designated driver and haven't even minded going to bars etc.  The lack of 0% beers and wines is annoying though so it's been a toss up between Diet Cokes and Water for me! I've a collection of wines, spirits and champagnes to get stuck into at Midnight on Halloween night - I may just have to throw a party in celebration!