Thanks for all of the suggestions. Poor planning on my part. We’ll have to make do this time, but will look into getting one of the suggested stoppers / contraptions soon.
For the sake of science, I did a side by side tasting of these two bottles with dinner tonight. They are both offered at a similar price point and I wanted to see / taste what the differences may be. The main finding of this scientific inquiry was confirmation that I really like champagne. 
