Hello!
This is probably the longest I’ve not posted anything for a while, and that’s largely because I’m on holiday in New York! It’s been a busy few days, the jet lag wasn’t as bad as I was expecting and it’s a wonderful place to hang out. I’ll probably write more about everything in time, but our main purpose for being here was for the wedding of Miss A’s brother.
We’ve got a shared apartment with her family at the Marmara Manhattan. The wedding was Thursday, and whilst it was a very small and intimate affair, it was one of the best weddings I’ve been to. Everyone got ready in the Apartment, which was spotless, must have used apartment cleaning NYC. All the girls had their hair done by Drybar. An app that gets a stylist to your door to put your hair in the style you want – brilliant! The two women did an amazing job on everyone. I felt slightly lazy just dumping on a suit and brushing my hair after everyone went to massive effort, but we scrubbed up well.
We needed cars to the ceremony and thankfully GetTaxi, or Gett as it’s now known works well out here too, I love using it in London for black cabs, and in New York it’s more like Uber, with a range of cars at varying prices. Miss A’s Dad sorted out some massive, shiny Chevrolet’s to get us to the ‘venue’ – Central Park.
It’s bizarre having such a massive park in the heart of such a busy city, but it really is a fantastic place to get married. The wedding took place in a small bandstand / pagoda in Central Park, with the ceremony led by an officiant who had a scary resemblance to Jerry Springer.
Normally after a wedding you’d get seemingly hours of hanging around, waiting for photos to happen, then maybe a break before the wedding breakfast. The happy couple had planned it differently. Instead we had a few photos taken at the park, and we then got taken to a private mini bus for a personalised tour of New York with an AMAZING tour guide by the name of Dahlia.
The tour was totally non-linear and we were driven to so many different places, it wasn’t a ‘typical’ tourist bus tour, we were able to choose where we wanted to go. We actually ended up in a very old pub by the name of McSorley’s, which dates back to the civil war.
The interior has sawdust on the floor and ancient American memorabilia on the wall, it apparently hasn’t changed much over the years, and that much was clear! They serve two drinks, Light Ale and Dark Ale at two ‘pints’ for $5.50 (which is probably the cheapest drinks you’ll find in the country!). No one really batted an eyelid that a suited and booted wedding party rocked up to their establishment.
Our wonderful tour ended up at the Skylark Bar which was the venue for the wedding breakfast. No lengthy formalities, or stuffy speeches, we sat and had an incredible meal, drank wine and chatted, just the 12 of us.
After the meal we went up to the cocktail bar to spend the rest of the evening drinking some fantastic cocktails, whilst overlooking the city.
All weddings should be like this!
