Skipping ahead a bit, we got married on Monday 31st August!

Huzzah!

We flew from San Francisco to New York, via a stop in Chicago . Unfortunately we had to go through the 'naked scanner' at San Francisco International. The flight to Chicago was about four hours long and went well. On arriving in Chicago, we only had about half an hour between our flights because of the long taxi into the airport. The flight from Chicago to New York was shorter and also went well. We arrived in New York late on Tuesday 25th August. We had ‘lost’ three hours during the course of the day, and struggled to adjust to the time zone changes. Meaning we stayed up way too late that night.

We went to New York with a vague plan to get married – but this time we pulled it off. In the course of putting the wedding together we rented a dress for Jayna, bought Ken a suit, shirt, tie, shoes and socks, bought shoes for Jayna, arranged for hair and makeup for Jayna, booked a photographer, bought flowers, got our marriage license, and arranged an evening activity in the form of a cruise with dinner. It was a busy few days. We also managed to squeeze in some fun stuff, in the form of a trip to Times Square, a walk around Central Park, a trip up the Empire State Building, visiting the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, the National September 11 Memorial, went up the newly opened One World Trade Center, visited Wall Street, and we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and back again.

We were staying in downtown Manhattan, in a very nice hotel . We had a great room though it was a touch on the small side. The view from our window was down Canal Street, on the corner of Broadway. We were ideally placed to visit the main Manhattan attractions and we had a great time doing so. Though we had trouble adjusting to the time zone change, we were quite productive with our time.

Times Square was a crowded, busy intersection, with flashing billboards and plenty of Broadway shows on offer. We took this in before moving on to Central Park. We only explored a little area of it and found it was much more built up than we expected. It had play parks and basketball grounds, water fountains, ponds, fenced off walkways and roads running through it. As well as trees, grass, rocks and squirrels. We ate giant pretzels and drank fruit smoothies. The trip up the Empire State Building was fantastic and gave us our first view of the Manhattan sky line, at night, and our first view of the Statue of Liberty, lit up in the distance .

We took a cruise to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. The boat trip afforded great views of the the sky lines of Manhattan and surrounding areas. We had an audio tour and went up to the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, which was busy and difficult to get around in the crowds. We had looked up the crown tickets as well, but these were sold out three months in advance. There were more nice views from the pedestal, and we then circumnavigated the statue on the walkway around the island. The statue faces towards France (it was a gift from France) and is only the thickness of two cent coins. She's very impressive. Back on board the ferry, we stopped at Ellis Island, one of the immigration centres for people arriving to the USA. It managed the immigration of 12 million people from 1892 to 1954. Now it has the history of the centre, and a lengthy display of contemporary events leading to the displacement of millions of people around the world.

After returning to Manhattan, we went to National September 11 Memorial at 'ground zero' and the monument to the nearly 3000 people who died when the World Trade Center twin towers fell . It was very moving. The water fountains sit in the footprints of where the buildings were, and are lined by the names of those who died. We watched as the area became gently lit as darkness fell. We admired the newly opened One World Trade Center, next to the monument, and decided to go up it another day, when we could see the sky line in the day.

We took a walk down Wall Street and saw the infamous 'Charging Bull' statue nearby, as well as the Federal Hall, where George Washington was sworn in as the first President of the United States. We also skyped our very good friends, Jack and El, but as we were still in the planning stages and were not yet married, didn't tell them about the wedding. Sorry about that you guys!

We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, from Manhattan to Brooklyn and back again, stopping for nice cold drinks on the way. It was a hot and muggy day but we had lovely views from the bridge. Later, we went back to the One World Trade Center Observatory, which ironically did not accept Ken's Mastercard as payment. This building only opened three months previously, and is the tallest building in the western hemisphere and the fourth tallest in the world - if you count the spike on the top. Here, we saw the sky line in the day, sunset and at night. Unfortunately, the humidity meant that the view was not as good as it could have been. The ride up the tower was an experience, with the sky line depicted throughout time as the lift ascended rapidly . We were also shown a snazzy video of New York's views, before the panels were raised, giving us our first dizzying view from the top of the building. It's pretty high. After taking in the views, we went back to the National September 11 Memorial and found our very own Cornish hero's name, Rick Rescorla, on the monument.

That was all before our wedding day. As above, the wedding took place on Monday 31st August. We got married at the Office of the City Clerk, Worth Street, Manhattan, at about 1pm. The day was hot and humid, at about 33 degrees celcius. We were sweltering in our formal wear!

In the morning, a lady came to the hotel and did Jayna's hair and makeup and did a very good job. We set off for the City Clerk's Office and met our photographer, Agaton, who was also our witness. We went into the offices and proved who we were, and that we were ready to get married with our witness present and the necessary paperwork . We took a ticket and were called up to a desk to finalise the details, and then almost immediately were called to the chapel for the ceremony. The actual room was quite depressing, with bare walls and a stained orange sofa. However, the ceremony only lasted about a minute - it was amazingly short. And then we were pronounced husband and wife!

We had to do some paperwork stuff before leaving the offices, as we require an extended marriage certificate for proof to the UK authorities of the legality of our marriage. This all took a little while but, luckily for us, Agaton was extremely accommodating and lovely about the whole thing. We had a nice chat whilst waiting in various lines, and then he took us for a photography session through various streets of late summer Manhattan. We took a taxi to the Meat Packing District (very romantic sounding) and took more pictures, finishing up on the south end of the High Line, a walkway garden built on disused railtracks running above the city . We were greeted by lots of shouts of congratulations from strangers on the street, which was very nice of them, if a little odd. By the time we reached the High Line, Jayna's feet were somewhat shredded by the new wedding shoes and so these were abandoned in favour of sandals, and later, bare feet. We bid Agaton a fond farewell, took a few photos of our own, and went for what was technically our wedding breakfast in a cafe below the High Line. This consisted of a delicious Farmer's Salad and a mozzarella, sundried tomato and pesto panini, with fries. Yum. Accompanied by prosecco, we opened our first wedding present - the 'in case of wedding' card from the lovely Jack and El, which we'd carried with us since London. Thank you so much, it really meant a lot to read your beautiful words. Your wedding present went to a very good cause - lots and lots of celebratory prosecco!

We leeched off the free wifi from the cafe, and called our respective parents under the High Line to give the good news.

We took a slow walk to the nearby waterfront, admired the views, and took some more pictures of our own. We took a taxi to our cruise spot, picked up our tickets, and climbed on board for our evening's entertainment - a cruise around Manhattan, with dinner and drinks. We had a delicious dinner, punctuated by trips to the top deck to admire the surrounding views, drank more prosecco, and were given 5 glasses of free champagne by the staff on board . We were offered various things, such as a first dance (we said thank you but no - we didn't want the fuss), and a 'shout out' by the DJ for our special occasion (we also declined this, but the staff had our names and gave them to the DJ anyway). Our 'wedding cake' was the dessert of sumptuous vanilla cheesecake with fruit compote. Later, fuelled by prosecco, champagne and excitement, we did a little dancing on the dancefloor, with our 'first dance' technically being 'Blurred Lines' by Robin Thicke. Oh dear.

We took another taxi back to our hotel, and drank the champagne we bought in Las Vegas to celebrate some more. It was a great day and we hope people will join us in celebrating when we return to the UK next year.

The following day was unfortunately not all fun, as we had various chores to accomplish. We had to finish getting our extended wedding certificates authenticated. We had to post some stuff home, as we couldn't carry Ken's suit with us for the rest of our travels . We also had to return Jayna's rented dress to the Rent the Runway shop. When that was done, we went back to Times Square for a wander, and a drink in the Hard Rock Cafe, before going to watch the Phantom of the Opera Broadway show in the Majestic Theatre. This was fantastic, very well put together, and a lot of fun to see. Humming the tunes, we went to see Grand Central Station Terminal and it's grand concourse, and took in the outside of the Chrysler Building, before heading home to get some decent rest before our flights the following day.

New York was so fantastic, and so much fun, but we still feel like we barely scratched the surface of what was on offer. There are famous sights in Manhattan we didn't go to, such as the Top of the Rock at the Rockefeller Centre, and Madison Square Gardens. Not to mention the other areas of New York which we didn't explore at all - Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx, all of which have lots to offer a visitor. We didn't go to Coney Island (not actually an island), or visit any of the beaches. There really is so much to see. We'll just have to go back another time!

Next stop - Los Angeles!

(13th September: The blog has now been updated with pictures from Agaton, as well as our own. Enjoy!)