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 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

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:

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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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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