Back to reality today after the most amazing week ever - a trip to New York which we planned 7 months ago, with a bit of a special day thrown in the middle of it....
We got married!
How I didn't burst over the past 7 months is a miracle - we kept it secret and fuss-free and it was the most magical, romantic week ever.
We’ve been asked so many questions about getting married in NYC so I’ll answer whatever ones I can remember here, as lots of people got in touch saying they wanted to do the same...and we couldn’t recommend it enough!
In order to get married in the Big Apple, you have a few options. You can get married pretty much anywhere you like – we opted for “City Hall” which isn’t really City Hall – it’s the City Clerk’s Office on Worth Street in Manhattan. You apply for a marriage licence online, which costs 35 dollars. It’s a simple form with basic details, and this form expires after 21 days so don’t do it too early! After you get your reference number, you go and present yourselves at the City Clerk’s Office where you complete your application to get a licence. You can get married 24 hours after this. You’ll need a credit card to pay the 25 dollars, your passports and a witness and off you go!
We opted to pay for a photographer to take pics of our day, and he also doubled as our witness. There’s an East Chapel and a West Chapel and once we were in there, we were married in 2 minutes flat!
Here’s a timeline:
Wednesday 6th September – applied online for a licence
Saturday 9th September – flew to NYC
Sunday 10th September – saw Aladdin on Broadway! (slightly off-topic but really brilliant!)
Monday 11th September – went to the City Clerk’s office and obtained our licence
Tuesday 12th September – got hitched!
Your marriage certificate from NYC is all you need – lots of people have been asking if we had to go to a registry office here first or after and nope – we’re 100% married! Having said that, there’s a second cert – an extended cert – we could have got. We still might, but it involved a few extra steps and travelling to different buildings and we just didn’t want to do that on the day or the days after, so we didn’t bother. I’m not changing my name so we didn’t see the point but we can get it via post if we ever need it.
We chose to stay in Manhattan, in a hotel called Hotel Giraffe, which was so great. The location was unbelievable; really close to a Subway station but we ended up walking everywhere because the weather was so gorgeous and you see more that way!
Whatever wedding you choose to have will be brilliant, but if you are thinking of eloping, we couldn’t recommend it more. It couldn’t have been easier and it was so much fun and zero stress – perfect!
And finally, the one big question we have been asked more than any; didn’t your parents mind? Of COURSE they didn’t! Our parents couldn’t have been happier for us – we told them over the summer and they’re so thrilled that we’re doing it our way. Why any parent would get upset is beyond me! How could you get mad at this, eh? ;-)
