Amber and Steve got married in Cop Cot in April. They first contacted me in the spring of 2020, when everything was completely shut down due to Covid, but many of us were hoping that life would have returned to normal by 2021, so Amber and Steve had originally hoped to get married then. In the end they had to postpone by a year and got married in the spring of 2022.
Amber and Steve live in Coventry in England with their two sons. They are 40 and 41. They met on a blind date, set up by friends. They had been together for eight years when they got married. Their two sons had been born before they got engaged. “We got engaged on the sixth anniversary of when we met,” Amber told me. They had planned a trip to Rome to celebrate their anniversary and Steve’s 40th birthday. “It got cancelled because of the first lockdown due to Covid,” said Amber. “So, we did a YouTube tour of Rome and Steve proposed in our garden,” Amber told me. Of course she said yes, but she was surprised, she had thought that he’d bought them a firepit!
Once they started to think about getting married, they knew that they wanted to have a destination wedding. They also knew that they didn’t want to go anywhere that would be too hot. “We had both always liked New York, and after Googling options in the city, we fell in love with the idea of getting married in Central Park,” Amber said. “We have numerous friends and family who have had the big, traditional wedding at home, and many regret the cost and feel that it didn’t live up to expectations,” Amber told me. “We also know people who have gone away to get married and told us they have no regrets,” she said. “For us, it was combining a great trip with a wedding. Plus the cost was nowhere near the cost of a traditional wedding in the UK,” she added. Of course I’m biased but I love this – taking the focus away from tradition and doing what everyone wants and instead going on an awesome trip with your nearest and dearest and getting married while there!
“For us getting married was the final piece of the puzzle,” said Amber. Steve had been married before and was hesitant to marry again, and Amber said that she had never been overly concerned with tradition, but after having the children and various other life events, it began to feel like an important step to them both. I’m told that all of their guests loved the idea of a wedding in Central Park and really enjoyed the unique experience. Amber said that they loved all of the photos, but their favorites were taken around Bethesda Terrace and overlooking Bow Bridge.
Amber and Steve were in New York from Monday to Saturday, with the wedding taking place on the Thursday. They stayed at The Benjamin Hotel in a suite so that their children could sleep in a separate room to them. “We would recommend our hotel, all the rooms we saw were fairly big by Manhattan standards,” Amber said. “It wasn’t too far for our taxis to the park on the wedding day and it is super close to a Metro station too.” I ordered their flowers to be delivered to the hotel on the morning of the wedding. “The flowers were perfect, given I had not given much detail other than wanting pale coloured. They arrived in good time to the hotel on the day,” Amber said.
Amber said that they have “absolutely no regrets about our wedding.” She added that “it was special, intimate and less formal than many weddings.” She said that everyone who came to their wedding said that it was the best they had been to for all of those reasons. “Being away restricts the details you can stress about,” she said, “which makes it more relaxed. More is out of your control so there’s no point trying to control it,” she told me. Amber told me that she thinks that smaller weddings are becoming more popular. “The intimacy of our wedding was definitely part of making it so special,” she said. As with all destination weddings there were a few people that weren’t able to make it, but that felt more like a ‘that’s a shame’ feeling rather than a devastating disappointment.
We made a good weather plan A and a bad weather plan B. The plan A ceremony location was Cop Cot and the plan B ceremony location, which luckily we didn’t need, was underneath Bethesda Terrace, where all of their guests could have sheltered from the rain if we had seen wet weather. I arranged for a cellist to be at the ceremony location to play before and after the ceremony, and the bride walked in to him playing Perfect by Ed Sheeran. We wrote a short introduction to the ceremony, and had a friend read the poem “Maybe”, which I’ll put at the end of this post.
There were twenty people in attendance in total; mostly friends rather than family, but of course their two sons were there. They had a vintage trolley bus pick everyone up from the park and take them over to their reception location in Brooklyn. “The driver of the trolley bus was part of our day too. Reggie was fantastic, he stopped for multiple loo breaks and happily had our music blaring,” said Amber. “It was a nice fun way of getting everyone downtown and over the bridge together and made more of the day,” she said.
For their reception, they went over to Brooklyn for a meal at The Osprey at The One Hotel. Amber told me there had been a few dramas with reception booking related to Covid, and the place they had in mind for their reception had closed down a week before their trip. “It turned out for the best as the food and service at The Osprey were fantastic,” said Amber. They had timed it to be there for sunset so the view of Manhattan and the East River was beautiful, and they were able to enjoy their rooftop bar after the meal. They said they would highly recommend it.
Amber purchased her Justin Alexander dress from True Romantica Bridal in Kenilworth, Warwickshire and the two bridesmaids had Maya dresses bought from ASOS. Amber and her two bridesmaids had professional hair and makeup done by the Metrolook team. “The girls who came to do it were so lovely and it all added to the day,” said Amber. Steve wore a lovely light gray suit, and Amber says that he did vaguely consider the colours of the season there. Their two boys had similar suits too, Amber tells me that it was their choice to be smarty pants like Daddy.
I asked Amber what she would say to anyone considering getting married in Central Park. She wondered if maybe some people wouldn’t be keen to get married in a public park with so many passers-by, “but everywhere we went, people happily moved for photos and congratulated us. They were very kind so we would say that it added to it all for us,” she told me.
I asked how we did. “We would definitely recommend Claire and the service from Wed in Central Park. Claire is very knowledgeable about all things relating to Central Park and helped us work out the timing of the ceremony to fit with our overall plans for the day with the trolley bus and eating for sunset over in Brooklyn,” she said. Amber said that they ended up arriving at the park a touch earlier than planned, but they were pleased to see that everyone involved has also arrived early. So, they got started early. Amber noted that their photographer finished at the agreed time, so he did a little bit extra for them! “If you are considering marrying in Central Park and like us are a little unsure where to start, Claire is definitely your answer. We had all we could have wished for with no stress at all,” said Amber.
Thank you so much for your kind words, it was an absolute pleasure to work with you both, Amber and Steve, and I wish you both lots of luck for your future together. This spring it has been so lovely to finally see couples married who have been planning for a while but had to put things on hold due to Covid. If you would like me to help you with planning your own Central Park wedding or elopement, whether you live locally or are planning on traveling to New York to get married, visit our website. Keep updated with our news and see lots of beautiful photos, “like” us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram and follow us on Pinterest.
Maybe.
Maybe we are supposed to meet the wrong people before we meet the right one so when they finally arrive we are truly grateful for the gift we have been given.
Maybe it’s true that we don’t know what we have lost until we lose it but it is also true that we don’t know what we’re missing until it arrives.
Maybe the happiest of people don’t have the best of everything, but make the best of everything that comes their way.
Maybe the best kind of love is the kind where you sit on the sofa together, not saying a word, and walk away feeling like it was the best conversation you ever had.
Maybe once in a lifetime, you find someone who not only touches your heart but also your soul, someone who loves you for who you are and not what you could be.
Maybe the art of true love is not about finding the perfect person, but about seeing an imperfect person perfectly.