WISHLIST: Autumn Home Accessories from notonthehighstreet

Making a house a home is always a personal target of mine. I love the home Tom and I have created together but as we rent at the moment we can't really make the house completely our home. There's the usual rental restrictions - limited number of items on the wall, can't change wall colours, carpet colours and everything has to be just as when you moved in. Completely understandable as you are in someone else's house at the end of the day but it doesn't stop a girl dreaming about what her perfect autumn house would look like....

'Deer' Cushions and Throw Collection

Whitewash Coat Hooks

Woods Silhouette Linen Lampshade

Copper Vase

Kiko Glass Frame

Penguin Print Hot Wheatabottle

Personalised Photo Block

 

Moroccan Style Lattice Candle Lantern

Alphabet Scented Candle

Oh the dream continues...

Do you like to make you home/bedroom all cosy for autumn?

Feel free to leave me a comment :)

Helen x



LIFE: Honeymoon in New York and Mexico #1

After we got married earlier in August we then jetted off for our honeymoon in New York and Mexico. When we were thinking about our honeymoon we spent a long time deliberating about where to go, Tom really fancied a safari but I was too scared! After a lot of travel brochures and internet searches we settled on America and Mexico. I spent ages looking into the best place to fly as a 'via' point between England and Mexico and settled on New York. The direct flight to Mexico was just so long and as I don't particularly like flying we decided it would just be too much. Having said that, our final holiday included eight, yes EIGHT flights! Top Tip for any travellers - don't have that many flights in a two week period if you're not a fan of flying. That part of the holiday was truly testing and I was on the edge of panic attacks multiple times, the confined space and aeroplane 'air' was just too much. However, (and not surprisingly) I survived all of the flights and the final destinations made the flights worth the stress!

We decided to book all of the different parts of our honeymoon ourselves, partially because that's how my family have always done holidays so it's what I 'know' but also because of the complicated nature of our honeymoon. We flew from London Heathrow to Dublin, then Dublin to New York JFK on the first day of our holiday. This was all fine and didn't involve too much waiting around, we had just enough energy to do a small amount of exploring in New York once we arrived. That was after a scary taxi journey - New York taxi's are not for the faint hearted - forget the highway code, everyone beeps at everything and anything and those little yellow taxis can pack some speed when there's a small space in traffic. It's all part of the New York experience I'm told. We were staying in Little Italy, which is in the south of Manhattan. Our hotel was The Nolitan, which was stunning, very modern and our room had beautiful views of the New York skyline. The customer service was very good, we even received a complimentary bottle of sparkling wine as it was our honeymoon! We stayed in a Corner Room with City Views, which includes a fair amount of space (hotel rooms are usually pretty small in New York, as space is money), bath, desk and two full length windows. It was lovely and a brilliant location for exploring Lower Manhattan, like SoHo, Greenwich, TriBeca, Nolita, Chelsea and Chinatown. After a couple of days exploring we headed back to the airport for another two flights before getting to Mexico!

We flew from JFK to Mexico City, Mexico City to Acapulco, other than the aeroplanes being tiny these flights were all ok too. Except for that moment when you're waiting to collect your baggage and you joke that they've lost your suitcase. Only to release moments later that there aren't anymore suitcases coming out and you don't have yours. Cue panic! After waiting 30 minutes to speak to anyone (not such good customer service) they informed me that my suitcase was still in Mexico City. They took the address of our hotel and said they'd send it on. Fast forward to the next day and finally my suitcase arrived, it was a worrying few hours to say the least and has taught me to put ALL of my valuables into my hand luggage - another tip for you!

The hotel we stayed in in Mexico was the Banyan Tree Cabo Marques, we stayed in a villa with an oceanfront view. This place is stunning, it's positioned on the edge of a cliff with views of the Pacific Ocean. So peaceful and relaxing. Each villa has it's own private pool, I've never swan so much in all my life. Tom was in his element too, he's such a fish! The customer service puts all customer service I've ever experienced before to shame, you don't have to do anything yourself. They have ample staff all around the hotel ready to help you with anything you need. They open doors, menus, put napkins on your lap, get you every drink you could ever imagine - it was holiday bliss! All of the staff couldn't do enough for you. We spent 6 nights there, enough to be completely relaxed, enjoy the surroundings and sneak in a couple of spa treatments.

Back to airport we went for another two flights back to New York - Acapulco to Mexico City, Mexico City to JFK. We flew through the night and landed at 7am into New York, not the best flying times when you've not had a proper nights sleep but luckily our next hotel, CitizenM Time Square had rooms available that we could check into straight away! So lucky. After a freshen up and a couple of hours sleep we headed back out to discover the Times Square area of New York. A much busier area of New York, compared to Little Italy area.

We were then airport bound again, for the final time, flying home via Shannon in Ireland. It was such an incredible trip and one I won't every forget for many reasons. The perfect way to start our married lives together :)

Feel free to leave me a comment.

Helen x

WEDDING: Pinterest Heaven.

As any Brides or Brides to Be will tell you - Pinterest is FULL of inspiration and ideas for your wedding. It's actually full of inspiration for all aspects of life but we'll focus on weddings today. I used Pinterest a lot throughout this whole wedding planning process and it was the source of a lot of ideas we had at our wedding and ideas we decided against. It's so helpful and that fact that it's free makes it one of the best wedding planning tools you can use! My Pinterest link is here, if you're interested in following me and/or browsing all of the beautiful wedding pictures I've pinned over the past year. You can really get a good feel for our wedding from the 'Wedding Inspiration' board, if you're curious about the style we planned our wedding around...

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Which style wedding would you go for?

Feel free to leave me a comment :)

Helen x

JEWELLERY: 77 Diamonds

When Tom got down on one knee in St. Ives, back in May 2013, the emotions were overwhelming. All of the thought he had put into making it perfect, the kind words he said, the stunning ring he proudly presented while down on one knee. For Tom the engagement ring was such an important part of the proposal, he wanted to get the most perfect ring and little did I know but he had actually listened to everything I had said about engagement rings in the past. It meant (and still means) so much. I had always said that I would love a square diamond and for the ring to go inwards towards the diamond (if that makes sense?) Other than that I had no expertise in diamonds or engagement rings, I didn't want to know too much as it was always going to be Tom's decision. He has since explained that he searched the high street and internet for the most perfect engagement ring, he wanted a place that had exquisite customer service, was somewhere extra special and had the ring he wanted for the right price.

This is when he came across 77 Diamonds, a London based company that offer the most beautiful engagement rings, wedding rings and jewellery. They sell a lot on their website but they also have a showroom in Mayfair, where you can see the rings and diamonds. I didn't realise, but at 77 Diamonds, when you buy an engagement ring you choose the diamond separately to the design of the ring. How special? Tom went for a meeting at the showroom (I obviously didn't know this at the time, as he works down in London a lot) to choose the diamond that was going to be put into the engagement ring.

He told me a funny story of how he was passed a diamond in between a set of tweezers and he dropped the diamond on the floor! Awkward!! Luckily he found it again and he didn't have to pay thousands for the lost diamond. As far as I understand, the diamond is the more expensive part of an engagement ring. Tom went for a princess cut diamond, exactly what I wanted, and the delicacy style ring. This style ring goes in towards the diamond - exactly what I had always hoped for. I can't express how lucky I feel everyday that Tom listened and choose the most perfect engagement ring you could every imagine. That's partially thanks to 77 Diamonds too, for offering exactly what I had always dreamt of for a price that Tom could afford. Now, I obviously don't know how much my engagement was but it's perfect and that's all I need to know.

Fast forward to over a year later and I've started the search for the perfect wedding ring. As Tom was the ring expert in our relationship I went to him for advise on the type of metal I should get and the style. My best friend, who is married, said that she decided to get a wedding ring that was the same width as her engagement ring. After trying on a number of wedding rings I decided I also wanted to do that, so I went onto the 77 Diamonds website and quickly got caught up in looking at all of the beautiful rings and jewellery. I found out that my engagement ring was about 2mm wide, so my hunt for a 2mm ring began. I kept looking in high street shops but I just couldn't find anything that I really liked, thought looked nice next to my engagement ring and wasn't hundreds and hundreds of pounds.

I kept going back to the 77 Diamonds website, their classic wedding ring section had such timeless designs for such reasonable prices compared to the high street. I needed to have a 18K White Gold wedding ring because that's what my engagement ring is. The 1477 Court design matched the Delicacy engagement ring design perfectly, as they were both more flat. The Light Depth also matched my engagement ring so well, it was a match made in heaven. I did all of this online but I could have gone to their showroom, I just don't go to London all that much and the images on their website are so clear and helpful. I didn't feel the need to see the ring in real life and it made the whole process a lot easier, especially as we have been so busy every weekend on the run up to our wedding. There's not been any free time to just wander around the high street! I finally decided to get the 18K White Gold, 1477 Court, Light Depth Classic Wedding Ring* from 77 Diamonds. Best of all it was around £200 cheaper than similar ones on the high street and it's more perfect than those, I'm so happy with it!

Then this arrived on my doorstep - what beautiful, extra special packaging?

Feel free to leave me a comment :)

Helen x   

* I received a discount but as usual my opinions are completely honest.