Archive for the ‘Honeymoons’ Category

Quickie Question: Where to Go?

Monday, September 17th, 2012


This is what leaving a wedding looked like fifty years and change ago. In fact, it’s a shot of a lady named Billie Mercer leaving her wedding reception with her new husband, Ned, in 1956. You can read about her wedding and how weddings have changed here, if you like.

One thing that was a given back then that isn’t as much of one now is that the happy couple would change their clothes and set straight off on their honeymoon.

These days it’s rare to have a getaway outfit. I believe the last one I personally witnessed was in 1978.

And while it’s still most common to head out on the honeymoon right away, it’s no longer an absolute given. Some couples hold destination weddings where the wedding and honeymoon are one and the same. Some plan to wait anywhere from a day to a year for the big trip. I still think one of the best decisions Mr. Twistie and I made was to spend our wedding night in a charming little B&B in the town where we were married. We ate at one of our favorite restaurants, relaxed with each other, had a bang up delicious breakfast, and dropped by my father’s house to spend a little time with family and open up gifts people had brought to the reception before we started our long drive up the coast to Canada.

Had we started driving right after we left the reception, I think we would have been more tired and less relaxed before we started our serious travels. We wouldn’t have gotten very far, and we probably would have been doing it in our wedding finery since there wasn’t a place on site to change.

In short, we found a way of doing things that made us feel comfortable and did it just that way.

So what about you? Are you heading straight from the reception to the airport/boat dock/open road? Do you plan to spend the week after your wedding lazing on the beach where you tied the knot? Are you planning to finish paying for the wedding and then worry about a honeymoon? Will you spend the night in a hotel or your own home and then head off?

And for those of you who have already done the deed, what did you do in this regard? Is it something you would do again, or a regret?

Quickie Question: Ultimate Honeymoon?

Friday, July 6th, 2012


We haven’t talked much about honeymoons for a while around here. But they are a part of the getting married process for the vast majority of couples, and they’re fun (if you do them right!).

Of course there are dreams and there’s reality. Mr. Twistie and I dreamed of London for our honeymoon, but that wasn’t in the budget. Instead we headed for the Great White North. We drove up the West Coast from our headquarters in California to spend a couple days in Vancouver and one on Victoria Island before meandering our way back to California again. We had a blast. Most of our time was spent exploring quaint or odd or even deliciously tacky stuff we happened across on our journey. We stopped when we were tired or saw a likely spot to spend the night, and we must have visited a hundred tiny antique shops on the road. The one hotel we booked in advance turned out to be a bust, but we found some delightful places to stay on other nights.

London it wasn’t, but it was a great trip. Besides, we got to London a few years later, too. That was amazing. I want to go back.

But enough about me. I know that for a lot of people the ultimate honeymoon looks a lot like the picture at the top of this article: white sands, blue water, lazy days in the sun, and rum-based drinks with tiny umbrellas. Is that your dream honeymoon? Or does yours look quite different? For those of you who have already gotten married or planned your honeymoons, did you get what you dreamed of?

Tell us all about it!

Quickie Question: Dream Honeymoon?

Tuesday, February 21st, 2012


The honeymoon is one of my favorite bridal traditions. It’s a chance to get away, get used to your new relationship, bask in the glow of each other… it’s both fun and practical.

But of course there are honeymoons and there are honeymoons. Not all of us get the honeymoon of our dreams.

Mr. Twistie and I dreamed of London. We couldn’t afford it at the time we got married. Instead, we drove up the California coast to Vancouver and spent a couple lovely days there before turning around and driving home again. It may not have been our ultimate dream, but it was a heck of a great trip. We had lovely adventures along the road both ways. And five years later, we did get our dream trip to London. It was every bit as great as we’d hoped.

So what about all of you? Did you/will you get your dream honeymoon? What is it? If you’re doing something else, what is it? If you did something other than your dream, how did you enjoy it?

The Pros and Cons of a Delayed Honeymoon

Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011

The bride and groom leaving for...?

Delayed honeymoons are making the news these days, with people speaking out both in favor of and against them. I’m glad to see I’m riding the wave of what is apparently a trend, since four years after my own wedding we have yet to take a honeymoon (and no, family members, getting married in Florida does not make the wedding our de facto honeymoon). I feel like the queen of delayed honeymoons! Because if I delay it any longer, any honeymoon momentum we still have is going to fizzle out.

What is a delayed honeymoon? Just what it sounds like: the bride and groom (insert b/b or g/g as necessary) make their way to the exit of the reception venue, say their goodbyes, climb in to their wedding limo, and head… home? It’s more common than you may think! Plenty of couples are now going without a post-nuptial vacay for financial reasons. The destination wedding crowd often combine the ‘moon with the matrimony. And some folks are now advocating for NOT leaving for the honeymoon directly after the wedding rings are slipped on for practical reasons more than anything else.

The Pros of Delaying the Honeymoon:

  • How about a chance to breathe? You’ve planned a wedding, executed a wedding, and now your next step immediately after is hopping in the car or on a jet plane? Slow down there! Why not go home, unwrap those wedding gifts, cash the checks, etc., and get your life in order before setting off?
  • A delayed honeymoon can be a better, more glamorous honeymoon. Post-wedding trips may not be all they can be because couples who’ve just dropped a load of dough on a wedding may not have much to spend. When waiting means saving up, the world is your honeymoon oyster.
  • When you a delay a honeymoon, you have a chance to come down off that wedding high that was at once glorious and hideously stressful. I’m not saying your wedding day isn’t beautiful, but my guess is that parts of it were anxiety-inducing, as well. A week or more of relaxation – or at least of basic everyday living – can do wonders for a person’s state of mind.

The Cons of Delaying the Honeymoon:

  • Immediately after the wedding, brides and grooms tend to be in the half-lidded romance zone, and there’s something glorious about jetting off to an exotic location when there are still stars in your eyes. Going away immediately keeps things romantic that much longer.
  • It’s easier to lobby for honeymoon discounts when you’re actually a very recent newlywed, and you still have that just-married look about you. Would my haggard working mama self be convincing as a starry-eyed bride? I think not.
  • You may end up like me, with no honeymoon and little chance of ever taking one. After first, the assumption was we’d wait a year to go on our delayed honeymoon. My guess? Four years later, we’re no closer to honeymoon, and I’d feel pretty weird calling any trip The Beard and I took by that name.

What do you think about delayed honeymoons – are you in the pro camp or the con camp? If it wasn’t an absolute necessary would you (or did you) consider waiting to take the ‘moon?

Image: Lindsay Tan

Out of town? Out of state? You may find yourself out of money by the end of it!

Monday, June 9th, 2008

I envy those who have the guts to get married in some far flung dreamscape. Had I opted to tie the knot in, say, Italy or Australia, I probably would have been disowned. Besides the fact that my then step-mother does not fly — like, ever — there would have been no way my father could have afforded to shuttle all of my siblings out of the country and back. The passport fees alone might have broken him!

It was when planning pissed me off most that I dreamt of eating those non-refundable deposits and ditching the whole works, dragging The Beard off to some romantic spot, and garbling some foreign language vows. But alas, that’s one dream that would have come with scads of social penalties. If any relatives of mine are reading this, see what I do for you? Had I reeeaaaally wanted to, I could have hole up (and gotten married) somewhere like this:

Costa Rica was looking pretty good right around then

Luckily, destination weddings aren’t always all they’re cracked up to be. Sure, there’s the ease of it all — find yourself an all-inclusive wedding package at some chic resort and you’re all set. And then there’s the evil joy of knowing that all the people you have to invite but don’t really want to invite will probably not attend. On top of everything else, you get to enjoy a mini-vacation or start your honeymoon right out of the gate! Is there even a downside?

Well, yes. There are indeed a few “cons” that balance out all of the “pros.”

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Would you rather splurge on family or fun?

Monday, April 7th, 2008

You can’t always get what you want, but if you try etc. etc.

All right, so the decisions isn’t quite as simple as the title of this post implies. The Beard and I spent what money we had on a wedding, with the knowledge that money for a fabulous Costa Rican vacation would appear later. We did not anticipate, however, that the house we planned to stay at would get leased out for two whole years. You could say that our honeymoon plans have been tabled in the long term, in part because we wanted to make sure that my huge family and his little one would be with us when we wed.

I was inspired to think about this after a friend suggested I check out an older post on his blog, Travel Plan Idea:

This is actually a homework assignment for students in my debate class, but regular readers are welcome to play. The topic is eloping and splurging on a honeymoon (this includes destination weddings) vs. spending a bunch of money on a traditional wedding and spending comparatively less money on the honeymoon. For example, I barely remember my wedding reception — it was fine but nothing special compared to my nine week honeymoon in Italy. However, my sister went for the big wedding reception because she wanted to share her wedding day with as many friends and family members as possible.

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