Time to put up another post of photos recapping our amazing trip to NYC!

It’s amazing how much our activities in New York revolved around eating! After going to Kleinfeld’s for wedding dress shopping (see previous post), we then headed over to Chef Bobby Flay’s MESA Grill on 5th Avenue for dinner.

To be completely frank, it did not meet my expectations at all. Allan and I ate at MESA Grill in Vegas, and it was far superior. I felt in general that it was very noisy in the room, crowded, and service wasn’t particularly quick.

The big saving grace for this restaurant is definitely the drinks. The pomegranate margarita was really delicious, and so were the other drinks that Allan, Kim and Greg had as well.

The food was pretty underwhelming for the price. It was quite expensive (~$50 per person and up), and basically what you got was a HUGE piece of meat and fish, and then you had to pick your own sides for an additional cost. I didn’t feel that this format allowed the chef to shine with pairings/combinations/flavour profiles, and it felt kinda like going to The Keg, but a lot more expensive. I had the sea bass with plums, Allan had the NY strip, Kim had a tamale and Greg had the pork medallions. I think I was probably the most disappointed of the group, but I didn’t think anyone was really raving about it either.

We did like our appetizer which was a blue corn pancake with barbecued duck (DELICIOUS!) and the corn breads/rosemary bread starters were also very yummy.

So we split up from Kim and Greg, and Allan and I went on a romantic date to Serendipity 3.

It was VERY cool. Super eclectic inside and very busy! We waited about 40 minutes to get a table for two.

We also spotted Blake Lively (Serena van der Woodsen from the show Gossip Girl), which was cool… since it’s such a quintessential NY show and place! It’s funny, Allan actually spotted her first! She looked pretty much exactly the same as she does on the show. She walked through covering her face trying to avoid anyone noticing her.

We finally were seated and I was surprised by how big the menu was. It was HUGE. We were there for the famous Frrrozen Hot Chocolate, but they served about 30 different desserts, plus lunch/dinner items and drinks.

We of course ended up sharing a Frrrozen Hot Chocolate. My expectations were low going in, as I had heard mixed reviews about the desserts. However… I can honestly say it was one of the BEST desserts I have EVER had. Soooo delicious. It really does taste exactly like frozen hot chocolate. It’s huge though, so make sure you share with someone.

It’s important to drink it through the straw and not use the supplied spoons. That way it does taste like frozen hot chocolate. It’s creamy, smooth but with little flakes of dark chocolate. It’s bubbly, light and airy… and totally exceeded my expectations.

It was a really sweet date for us to go on, and if we had stayed in NYC longer, I definitely would have gone back for seconds.

The next day we all headed out on the subway again to explore a different area of town.

We headed over to Chelsea and enjoyed walking around the area, checking out architecture and enjoying the amazing weather we had.

Allan really wanted to check out the High Line which is a city project mile-and-a-half-long elevated park, running through the Meatpacking District, Chelsea and Clinton. There was a great view from up there! We didn’t get a chance to walk the whole thing, but it was still need to check out.

We made it over to the Chelsea Market, which was SUPER cool. For you Vancouverites, imagine a posh upscale Granville Island Market! They had all sorts of amazing restaurants, foodie shops, chocolate shops, clothing stores, and more. It was also cool to see the linen store where I ordered sheets for our bed about a year ago. My primary purpose for going there was to check out Jacques Torres’ chocolate shop. For those of you who remember my chocolate chip cookie recipe, it is based on Mr. Torres’ recipe… so that’s why I had to sample some of his amazing chocolates!

The cookies were very good, but since they weren’t fresh it was kind of hard to judge.

I bought a box of chocolates to bring back to my mom, and I finally got to have a bite of them last week when I gave them to her, and they were HEAVENLY.

Yep, we ended up eating a lot. More New York stories and photos to come

I am absolutely THRILLED to finally announce that we have selected our dream wedding photographers… Jonetsu Photography!

The past few weeks, Allan and I have been on a thorough search for the best possible photographers to photograph our special day. We weren’t able to find the level of quality we were looking for in Tofino, so we decided to look for Vancouver wedding photographers. We looked through about 60 different wedding photographers in Vancouver, and narrowed it down to just a couple choices.

Photo Credit: JONETSU Studios

After a couple in-depth meetings, I am proud to say we were able to secure Jonetsu! We really clicked with Camille and Chadwick. Not only are they beautiful, authentic people… but they have great energy and you can tell they are really in love with each other. They really have a connection with nature and I honestly can’t imagine anyone else shooting our day. We love their epic “dreamscapes” and attention to detail with telling a story in their albums. Not to mention they are so similar to us in so many ways. They are extremely accessible too since they are based here in Vancouver and they get back to us with e-mails faster than any other photographer we have dealt with — this is actually a very important part of the selection.

Photo Credit: JONETSU Studios

Thanks to everyone who recommended us to them on Twitter. I can’t believe how many of our favourite couples have been photographed by them, and the reviews they have all given me of Jonetsu have been beyond glowing. I think we will be good friends with Camille and Chadwick for a long, long time

Yesterday we signed the contract and I am just giddy with excitement that we were able to get them! I can’t believe it! WOOOOHOOOOOOOO!

Photo Credit: JONETSU Studios

Camille and Chadwick will be shooting our wedding in Tofino, as well as our engagement shoot in Vancouver and a boudoir/saucy cat session that will be my wedding present to Allan! Can’t wait. We will of course be posting some of the photos on the blog here. Thanks to everyone for all your advice and help with planning this wedding so far… I couldn’t do it without you!

Photo Credit: JONETSU Studios

You can follow Jonetsu on their website here, their Twitter or their awesome blog!

Here’s a question for you… can you recommend any cool places in Vancouver for Allan and I to do our engagement shoot? Any ideas for cool shots that we could do that involve surfboards/snowboards/bikes/golf etc? What do you think of Jonetsu’s photos?