Our Wedding Day - 20th May 2017, Belvedere Castle, Central Park, NY

WARNING: This post may be very photo heavy!

On 20th May 2017, our wedding day finally arrived!

After 2 whole years of planning, it was finally time to say I do.

Being the control freak that I am, I was determined that nothing would go wrong.

But as everyone had told me, something always does!

We made the decision to flee the country and get married in Central Park, New York.

Planning and paying for a wedding in the UK was getting too stressful and every man and his dog wanted a say in how the day should be.

And let's face it, the photo opportunities!

We headed out to New York on Wednesday 17th May to give us plenty time to get everything organised and deal with last minute admin things out in NY.

You also need to attend the City Clerk's office to get your marriage licence, then wait 24 hours from its issue for your ceremony to take place, so if you plan on having a NY wedding, make sure you get there a few days before!

The first few days we were in NY, it was super hot! Like 32 degrees and baking sunshine! So you can imagine my upset when on the morning of the wedding I woke up and it was raining! Thankfully the rain stayed away for the rest of the day but it remained overcast. This was probably good for my photos because I'm terrible for squinting in sunlight!

Mum and I had booked in to the Mac make up studio on the morning of the wedding so we were up bright and early and on the subway to Lexington Avenue. I honestly spent days in the run up to the wedding looking for MUAs in New York. I just so happened to mention this to a lovely girl on the Chanel counter in Harvey Nichols Edinburgh, when buying foundation and she recommended I try the Mac Studio. They were absolutely amazing on the day. My make up was perfect from morning until I went to bed and everyone commented on how good it was. It even survived the disaster that was yet to come!

After getting ready in the apartment with my family and bridesmaids, the cars arrived to take us to the ceremony. All was going well until we hit a MASSIVE traffic jam in the midtown tunnel. I could see the driver's SatNav was saying we'd get to the venue at 4.05pm. My wedding was meant to be at 3pm! This obviously set me off shouting, crying and panicing! My bridesmaids were having to make a few calls to Mikey in the back of the car and we somehow managed to pull some strings and get the wedding moved to 4.30! It was honestly the most stressful moment of my life. I thought I was going to pass out haha!

We arrived at Central Park and made our way up to Belvedere Castle for the ceremony, which was short and sweet - just how we wanted it!
We were pronounced man & wife to great cheers from our family and friends!

After the ceremony and group photographs, everyone headed down to the Tavern on the Green for a drink whilst our photographer did a shoot with just us. Our photographer was the amazing Ricky at Yodog Media. I found him on Thumbtack - I'd highly recommend him!

We then headed over to Central Park South to Sarabeth's - A celebrity haunt (there were none in on our day though). We had booked the garden room for our event. We had a private bar and our own toilets. The room was perfect for our group size. And oh my word, the food! We got to put together a menu from their event menu and I have to say, we did well. Most people had filet mignon for main and my dad said it was the best steak he's ever had - and he loves his steak!

After many a drink (we had a free bar until 10.30!) we headed to Times Square because I wanted photos on the red steps ha ha! This led to a rendition of Flower of Scotland by the wedding party which was filmed by a lot of tourists! I was secretly quite sad we didn't go viral ha ha! We then moved on to an Irish bar called Playwrights to finish the night!

It really is true what they say. Your wedding is the best day of your life. And to get married in New York made it even more special for us! We had the time of our lives and we'll definitely be going back soon (hopefully for our first anniversary haha)!