London Proposal Published on Londonist

Scott and I just booked flights for a trip back to London for New Year’s Eve!! We couldn’t be more thrilled as this is definitely a bucket list item for me (as well as visiting a Christmas Market while in England). Scott did do NYE in London the year that we had first started dating, so I almost feel like this brings our relationship full circle seeing that the new year will kick off the year we get married. And speaking of marriage, I’m ecstatic to share that mine and Scott’s proposal story was published as apart of a Best Places to Propose in London feature on the Londonist - check out the story here!

On a side note, did anyone else know how much of a hassle it is to renew a passport?! Thankfully I’ve thought ahead and will get a new passport well in advance for my holiday travel, and also that I had all of the necessary forms and was eligible to renew via mail. BUT, I went to have a new passport photo taken, and I had it done at a mail center so naturally I figured I would also mail out my renewal from this mail center. I’m waiting in line as the clerk is creating shipping labels, making sure everything is included in the package (there’s a line queuing up behind me), and I come to find out that all together I was looking at $96 for shipping costs. My reaction, “wait what, it costs that much to ship”, and he said he could only ship documents like this via Fedex. And that I could risk losing my mail if I shipped USPS. But I know that I could still send USPS priority or some certified method. The clerk discreetly kept trying to convince me that USPS was not reliable and it would cost $35 to process my passport renewal (but hey, even the processing fee would be significantly less than shipping with fedex).

I had a Priority Mail Flat Rate envelope that worked perfectly for my passport papers and it only costed $6.55 (via my paypal shipping account) which included tracking and insurance, and I added signature confirmation and additional insurance; in total I spent $12.50 to send my renewal papers! If you’re having to renew soon, check out these resources: I looked at preparing my passport renewal here as well as USPS Passport page here for mailing the packet.