Weddingbee Blog

On our first night on our honeymoon, as we were leaving Dano’s, we stopped at their little brochure table by the door, hoping to pick up on any local festivities while we were in town. We were in for a treat!

The next evening, there was a charity dinner held by Share our Strength, an organization committed to ending childhood hunger and teaching people how to cook healthy, fresh meals. The dinner was called “Chef’s Night Out” where 5 celebrated chefs in the area each prepared one course for a 5-course meal. The tickets were $75 each, included the five courses and a wine pairing for each course, and was going to a worthy cause! How could we object?

Of course we couldn’t!

I prepared myself for a somewhat fancy dinner, but when we arrived, we noted that it was mostly casually-dressed professors who all knew each other. We kind of stuck out like a sore thumb, but I didn’t care…I had wine!

(Hey, it was my honeymoon…I felt entitled to show some cleavage since it wasn’t exactly bikini weather)

Overall, the dinner was delicious and so much fun! Mr. Socks and I made yummy faces at each other all evening while we listened to a few speakers talk about the foods, the wine, and the cause we were supporting. It was definitely a feel-good night!

Unfortunately, that feel-good night ended up as a slightly hungover morning when we were scheduled to take our hot air balloon ride. We braved the early time and the freezing weather though, and arrived at our launch point at 6 AM—our launch was supposed to “meet the sun” as it rose in the sky. Pretty cool, right? Our hot air balloon ride was with Liberty Balloon and they were fantastic!

I was…slightly surprised by the size of the basket:

With three tanks and some other supplies inside the basket, I knew it would be a tight fit for the three of us, but I was still super excited because I had ALWAYS wanted to go on a hot air balloon ride—I had even imagined being proposed to in one (though, after seeing the size of the basket and how easily the ring could have tumbled waaaaaay down to the ground, maybe that wasn’t the brightest idea).

We were ready! They filled the balloon up…

And it started to rise…

We climbed in ever-so-gracefully (I kinda fell in)…

And we were on our way!

I was blown away by the fall foliage—it was all so beautiful, and the day was perfect for the balloon! Many days, the pilot isn’t able to take off because of weather, so we were lucky to get a good day.

I love these pictures of us in the balloon:

After we landed, we went to Watkins Glen State Park, which is famous for its waterfalls!

There were over 800 steps in the park, but it was manageable since we stopped for photo opportunities every second or so. We even saw a woman with a cane traverse the terrain, so we were inspired by her to not complain about the burn of the steps.

I would definitely recommend checking out Watkin’s Glen if you’re in the area—it was really an amazing site to see and got me excited for Niagara Falls!

To end our adventures at Lake Seneca, we stopped at a bar and had a couple of beers, just to change things up. We met with a lively drunk crowd who had apparently been there all day, and tried to get them to take our picture in front of the setting sun since we got one that day as the sun rose:

Well, unfortunately it’s a tad fuzzy, but we appreciated it, and it’s the sentiment that counts, right?

We’d definitely go back to The Finger Lakes. I feel like three days was a good amount of time for us since we wanted to go on adventures more than we wanted to chill out. This was the perfect place for a little bit of both!

My next and final honeymoon post will be all about Niagara-on-the-Lake and Niagara Falls!

(And our pro-pics are coming very soon, I promise!)