Why and How to Honeymoon

By The Married Wanderers On August 12, 2016

Step 1: Say YES to having a honeymoon

Trust us, we know, weddings are crazy expensive!! Just coming up with the money for a wedding is challenge enough, but if there is anyway you can cut down on some wedding extras for a honeymoon fund, then absolutely do it!!

The honeymoon was as important to us as our ceremony. Our first tip would have to be: Establish your “wedding budget” and make your honeymoon a fixed cost next to the venue, champagne and wedding dress. Yes, the honeymoon money could have given us better canapés, a professional invite designer and even more beautiful flowers (and so the infinite wedding list continues), but when money is involved, priorities have to be made. As a traveller, I wish I could write a post saying, “don’t have a wedding, rather use the money to travel”, but as a girl, obsessed with romance and décor, I would not have given up my wedding day for anything!

The importance of a honeymoon

The honeymoon was the best wedding decision we made, because it was really an extension of our big day.

Rudi and I often feel a slight anti-climax after a big event. When we travel, we spend hours planning and thinking about every element of the trip and then spend months being excited about it and bringing it up at every opportunity. Then, when we return home, so satisfied with the trip, we suddenly feel a bit lost. You actually become so consumed by the big event that when it actually comes, it seems to flash by in a second and just when you start really getting in to it, its over. When you return home you are still on such a high. The next day you go see your friends or work colleagues and they ask you about it for maybe 10 minutes and then all of a sudden you are back to talking about this one’s birthday or that one’s promotion. “But wait, Im still excited about my trip, I’m not ready to move on!”

A wedding is the ultimate example of this. You plan it for so long and it’s all over in about 7 hours. The honeymoon is a way to really stretch this happy and exciting period of your life out. As amazing as your wedding was, when its over, life moves on for the world. So if you go back to work on Monday, look out for that needle flying towards your wedding bubble.

Step 2: Go simple and go all-inclusive

Travel for us is often the opposite of “relaxing”, as we get so excited to explore the area and all its activities that we end up quite exhausted when we return. So what is important to note (and to not feel bad about) is that your honeymoon is not a typical holiday. It is really a time to pause between one of the busiest and emotionally exciting and draining times of your life and your new reality that awaits you back home as a married couple. This pause allows you to just relax, recoup and really prolong this exciting newly-wed phase before you dive straight into reality again.

So if you didn’t make it to the local market or the scuba diving site because you spent the day between your room, the resort pool and the spa – then awesome, you are officially on honeymoon!

Planning a wedding while working and living your normal life can become very consuming! You don’t get time to go on dates and everyone knows pressure and stress is the best setting for a fight, or two. So, before life starts trying to throw itself in between you, and the real work and joys of real marriage set in, GO ON A HONEYMOON! Start your marriage off right!

Step 3: Leave straight away

We left our wedding at 11:45, got to our hotel at 12:00 and 4 hours later we put our wedding dress and suit in the car, left our car keys at the reception for our parents to collect, and ubered to the airport for our 6am flight to Mauritius!!

Do not be tempted to postpone your honeymoon by even a few days, you will get straight into packing up of wedding decor, returning suits and hired decor, writing thank you messages, when really, you should be cuddled up in some white satin linen somewhere sipping on cocktails. All of these post wedding duties will still be there when you return, give yourself this grace period!! You may also be tempted to have 3 or 4 days before you leave because of family that has traveled or the pile of wedding presents sitting patiently in your lounge, but resist! This is your wedding, and as much as the guilt always convinces you otherwise, this time is all about you and your new partner, not your cousins or aunties and definitely not your new house goodies.

Other temptations also factor in, like it may not be the best weather or season at your destination of choice, or you may have used up too much leave in the wedding preparations, or you may just feel too overwhelmed with all the wedding planning that the idea of planning a holiday at the same time is just too much. But do not allow yourself to fall into this trap. Make a plan friends, make a plan!!

Still not convinced,

Here’s another 5 fun reasons why to go on a honeymoon:

1. Lets be real, you’re probably as ready as you will ever “feel” for those beach holiday photos. So if this is something you have always avoided or been shy about, your honeymoon is the perfect time to just claim your body and start loving it, your partner sure does! So since you’re all dieted, spray tanned, gymed and fake eyelashed up, go and claim if for another week on a beach or somewhere beautiful!

2. If you’re at an all inclusive resort, you get to really make up for “pacing it” at the wedding! You also get to eat so much amazing food after having skimped on date nights in your attempts to save.