Gazelles Take Manhattan–Day 2

Day 2 in New York City dawned.  Mr. Gazelle and I decided to kick off the day with a delicious breakfast sandwich from Dean & Deluca, just one block away.Once we were fuelled and ready to go it was time to ride the subway!  Coordinating t-shirts completely unintentional.Mr. Gazelle indulged my desire to hit up the shops so we started at Union Square and made our way up Fifth Avenue.  Check out the view of Union Square from Filene’s Basement (which is apparently not in a basement).I found my favourite store!In J. Crew we even spotted a couple of famous folks checking out at the register next to us…  Melora Hardin (Jan Levenson on The Office), Dallas Green of Alexisonfire and City & Colour and Leah Miller of So You Think You Can Dance Canada:

THE CANADIAN PRESS / Darryl Dyck – Image via CTV

As we continued up Fifth Avenue we found the Flatiron Building!Soon it was time to change into our business casual clothing and make our way to The Plaza for afternoon tea.Isn’t Mr. Gazelle handsome?

Afternoon tea is $48 per person, with the option to add on a glass of champagne for an additional $20.Tea includes finger sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and jam and lovely rich and delicate pastries.  Although it may not look like much we were full and couldn’t quite finish everything! 

In the evening we hit up Broadway to go see Wicked!This was the one show I was keen to see in New York so we bought tickets ahead of time instead of taking our chance with last minute discount tickets.There were a lot of really catchy tunes and I really enjoyed the show.  I was really glad we had a chance to see it in person in New York!

After the show we were starving and we wandered through Times Square.Bubba Gump sounded pretty good to us!We ordered some peel and eat shrimp and some beers.  Mr. Gazelle had to get serious for those shrimp so the tie had to come off.The restaurant is open until midnight, making it perfect for a late night bite after a show.  There are great views of Times Square and the food was pretty tasty.  I highly recommend the spicy peel and eat shrimp and the Brooklyn Lager.With full bellies we made our way back to the hotel.  We had a busy day planned for tomorrow!

Have you seen Wicked?  What should would you want to see on Broadway?  If we had more time I would have loved to also see How to Succeed in Business…

Gazelles Take Manhattan–Day 1

Mr. Gazelle and I decided to take a quick honeymoon right after the wedding to New York City.  We got married on Sunday and took a red eye from Vancouver out east on Monday night.  Here we are on our flight to New York, so excited!!!  (but a little tired…)We had arranged for a luxury car to pick us up from La Guardia from Dial 7 Car & Limousine Service.  They picked us up just a few minutes after we had collected our bags and it was really nice to drive into the city in air conditioned luxury. 

We checked in to our room at the Distrikt Hotel.  When we booked the hotel back in December the hotel had great ratings on Trip Advisor and we were not disappointed.  The room was fairly large, the bed super comfortable and it was conveniently located to the subway.Plus, the awesome staff left us cupcakes and a note of congratulations!We spent the afternoon getting our bearings around the city, then after a quick nap it was time for dinner!Mr. Gazelle and I are huge foodies and we love watching Top Chef and the Food Network…that may become apparent in our recaps!  Two shows we love on the Food Network?  Chopped and 24 Hour Restaurant Battle.  If you watch either of these shows then you may recognize this guy as one of the judges:

Image via Food Network

Scott Conant. 

We kicked the trip off with dinner at Scott Conant’s Scarpetta.  The food was delicious (oh my gosh, the bread basket was to die for).  The sommelier helped me navigate through their Italian heavy wine list and recommended a delicious wine in our price range.  The service was great, and the bathroom sinks are very cool!After our fantastic dinner we wandered over to the next block to a bar a friend of mine recommended – 675 Bar.  This place is an awesome little spot underground, perfect for geeks who like a good cocktail and some good tunes.  There are little rooms off the main bar – we found one with a huge library of books in it.  These pictures are truly a testament to how amazing the flash is on my point and shoot camera because it was darrrrkkk in there!After we enjoyed a couple of cocktails (the Earl of York with Earl Grey infused vodka, lime and agave was delish) we decided to check out some of the games.  Jenga anyone?Miss Pac-Man was free!After Mr. Gazelle kicked my behind at Miss Pac-Man it was time to call it a night.  Definitely big thumbs up for 675 Bar.  We were there on a Tuesday night so it wasn’t that busy, but apparently the place is packed later in the week.  Day 1 is a wrap!

Look what we did!

We got married!!  The day was amazing and perfect.  I catch myself looking down at my wedding band and finding it hard to believe that the day wasn’t a dream.While we wait on our pro pictures I’ll fill you in on some final projects (like our beautiful and amazing bridesmaid dresses that I couldn’t share with you because my mom finished them…oh…the day of the wedding) plus I can’t wait to recap our honeymoon in New York City.One of my favourite pictures of the night – taken by my husband as I walked into the hotel after our wedding.  Busted bustle, sore feet, tired and oh so happy to be married!

Ms. Gazelle

This is it…

Well hive, today is the big day.  I get to marry Mr. Gazelle!  Our engagement has been an incredible journey and it has been such an honour to share our wedding planning with you.  Thank you for all of your advice and support along the way.

To everyone who has worked so hard to make this wedding happen, Mr. Gazelle and I thank you from the bottom of our hearts.  To everyone who has travelled from near and far to celebrate with us, it means so much to us that you are here.  To those that couldn’t be here, you are in our hearts.

To Mr. Gazelle, I can’t wait to see you tomorrow and I am so excited to be your wife.  Here is to a lifetime of love and happiness together.

Photo by David Murchison

My last time as a Miss, soon to be a Ms…Gazelle

Gazelle Practices Getting Made Up

Now that Mr. Gazelle and I are in Vancouver for the wedding it is time to take care of a few last details.  I finally got to have my make up trial!  I booked my make up artist, ML Makeup Artistry, on the advice on my photographer, and boy, did she make a great recommendation!

First up I had to scour the internet for a little inspiration for my makeup trial.  I turned to Reese Witherspoon because she always looks effortlessly gorgeous and not overly made up.

Steve Granitz / WireImage.com / image via Redbook Magazine

I don’t tend to wear a lot of makeup on a regular basis.  Meghan worked to make my make up beautiful but I still felt like me.  Want to see how it turned out?This was in the car right after my appointment.  Maybe not the best lighting, but what can you do?

In the evening Mr. Gazelle and I walked to Jericho Beach which is right next to our venue.  I wanted to see how my makeup looked in the evening light outdoors.  Unfortunately I wasn’t wearing my glasses (which I will be wearing on the day).

After running errands all day in warm Vancouver I thought my makeup still looked great.  I think the eyes really pop.  Even though I was wearing quite a bit of makeup I didn’t feel overly made up.And of course it wouldn’t be a Gazelle photo shoot without me taking a goofy picture of myself!What do you think?  Anything I should change for the big day?

Gifting the Girls

Favourites for our favours

Mr. Gazelle and I wanted to give something that really signified us for our wedding favours.  The decision was really easy – tea and cookies!  We both love Earl Grey tea, specifically Russian Earl Grey tea with lemongrass and orange.  I ordered 1 kg of loose tea online and we packaged them up in adorable tins from etsy seller InTheClear.We then prettied them up with some leftover purple Baker’s twine from our invitations.Since some folks prefer to make their tea with bags we’ll be including some tea filters in the favour bag.  So our guests know how to make the perfect cup I had some business cards printed up with instructions at Vistaprint.As for cookies, we both love a good, traditional Scottish shortbread.  Normally I’m more than happy to buy Walker’s shortbread, but I thought it would be nice to gift homemade cookies for this occasion.  I found a recipe with ratios of butter, flour and sugar very similar to what Walker’s is believed to use (1 part sugar to 2 parts butter to 3 parts flour).

Mr. Gazelle got to work creaming the butter with the sugar.The puppy dogs were pretty keen to hang around the kitchen while this all was going on.  I sifted the flour.Once that was all done there wasn’t much more for me to do while Mr. Gazelle incorporated the flour into the butter so I just hung out in my cute apron and enjoyed a glass of wine.We deviated from the recipe slightly by chilling the dough in the fridge for about half an hour, then we rolled it out into jelly roll pans.  We scored fingers into the dough using a pizza cutter (cutting about halfway through the thickness of the dough), then I used a fork to prick holes into the surface.Bake at 350F for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 300F.  Bake for another 35 minutes or so, but be sure to watch and make sure your edges aren’t about to burn.  We dusted the surface with berry sugar (just because my mom had some, but regular granulated sugar would work just fine).  We’ll package the cookies in glassine bags to gift our guests along with the tea.The cookies are the perfect texture.  Yay for success!

Did you decide to gift something homemade for wedding favours?