fluff: Let's talk honeymoons

My father in law gifted us our honeymoon as a wedding present. We went to Italy and ate our way through the country. We didn’t take our honeymoon until about 6 months after our wedding, so directly after the wedding we had a long weekend getaway to Dana Point, CA and stayed in the same hotel where we stayed when he proposed.

First marriage we had planned to stay at a nice hotel at the beach (a few hours drive) but had to delay as my exDH's brother passed away and we had to stay and help his family with funeral plans. (His brother had been quite ill so while it wasn't a total surprise, we still didn't really expect it that weekend).

Second marriage we basically eloped with immediate family (on both sides) at a different beach and stayed there for the long weekend (including family). So not exactly a "honeymoon". He also had just started a new job and didn't have vacation leave accrued yet, so we just had the 3 day weekend to be away.)

Compromise has been that I told him I wanted us to go away somewhere every year for our anniversary -- and so far we have managed each year-- sometimes it is not very far or elaborate but it is the 2 of us and that makes it special. (Though I still would like a "honeymoon" trip one day

No, we were young and saving to buy for a house, so no honeymoon, but we bought our first house 6 months later and were glad we did since I got pg right away. We had 3 months to get the baby’s room ready.

We went to Aruba for five days, de-stressed on the beach then Disney Worlds for a week. Hoping to repeat it for our 25th next year.

We were young and didn’t have much money. We took a train to Toronto for a long weekend. We were able to stay in a very nice hotel. It was great. We went back for our first anniversary and were able to stay a little longer that time.

It was pretty cool. Mom died a month before the wedding. When I was showing Dad the photos, he recognized the place. It was like a little hug from Mom. 

I did have a honeymoon for my first but it was just a "sorta" honeymoon in DC. We had a few days alone and then my step-son flew to DC and spent 3-4 days with us and then we all flew home. DC was a halfway point for us.

My current dh and I did a destination wedding to Savannah, GA and we ended up spending 4-5 more days there alone. had a FABULOUS time and I'd go back in a heartbeat!

1st marriage: Went to Cancun for a week following the wedding. Rained for 2 days straight. I got the revenge and he got mad at me for being sick.
2nd marriage: Went to Florida panhandle (our favorite place on Earth) about 9 months after the wedding because he had two back surgeries after we got married. We also went through a rough patch after the surgeries, so the honeymoon was a much needed break and a way to reconnect.

My husband assumed the role of honeymoon planner. He originally thought we'd spend a month in Europe, but made the mistake of sharing this with his parents. They told the relatives & friends, & our tentative honeymoon quickly evolved into an overly-scheduled family reunion. He wisely changed plans & we honeymooned on the West Coast, where we make the cross country trip to return often (with our now teen). It was & continues to be a special place for us...

First marriage we spent a week in a condo on the beach in Perdido Key, FL (between Pensacola and Orange Beach, AL). My parents helped me pay for it as ex was a useless POS. I should have paid attention.

Second time, FIL sent DH and I on an Alaskan cruise, my parents paid for all the excursions, and DH and I only had to worry about souvenirs! Wonderful and relaxing.

We were living in Northern Ireland when we got married (so had a houseful of visitors) DH had been in London for a couple months before and after the wedding... was only in Belfast the wedding weekend.... although we did managed to farm out th3 hous3 guests for the first night..... did a trip home to Canada a few months later and then our Honeymoon about 10 months afte4 the wedding to Egypt.... top of my bucket list

We went to Toronto about three weeks after the wedding for 5 or 6 days. We ran out of money towards the end of the trip! We were pretty brokers newlyweds.

We didn't have a wedding but went on a Mediterranean cruise for our honeymoon.

We got married on a Saturday and had one night in a local hotel, then the next morning we had to get up early to drive five hours with FIL, MIL and DH’s elderly grandma to bury grandpa’s cremains in the family plot. So the day after our wedding we basically attended a funeral, no lie. He had passed away six months prior but because they lived in a different state from where we lived and from where the family plot was and because grandma was wheelchair bound, it made sense to his parents to drive her down for it since we were halfway between the two places.

Then what should have been a whirlwind romantic honeymoon was anything but. It was grandpa’s dying wish to send us to Hawaii for our honeymoon, as their gift to us. They had gone for their 50th and wanted us to be able to experience it while we were young, and they had the money to do it right. Since grandma wasn’t able to make the arrangements herself, MIL was tasked with the job. She was so sour about the fact that her parents didn’t make that trip happen for HER that she booked the absolute CHEAPEST accommodations and travel possible. We had multiple layovers on the flights both there and back. First hotel room had a cockroach that was 3” long that wouldn’t flush down the toilet. It was also five blocks away from any of the pickup places for any of the tours, all of which left at 8:00 am, and we had no rental car for the first five days so we literally had to RUN down the street so we wouldn’t miss the tour buses. Because we were young and broke, our wedding gift money didn’t stretch very far for meals (because his mom didn’t give us any money from grandma for that) so we ended up eating at McDonald’s every day, except for the days we ate PB&J sandwiches in our hotel.

The second half of our trip was only marginally better. That room also sucked because it was far away from the beach and not close to anything else either. We used the rest of our money to rent a car so we could drive around some, and we paid for one excursion on Maui which was a dinner cruise on a sailboat, but the water was so choppy that it promptly made me green with seasickness and I didn’t want to eat for fear that I would puke.   Good times, good times. NOT. We were both so irritated with his mom for cheaping out on every stinking thing, and knew grandpa was probably rolling in his grave because the trip we got wasn’t the experience he wanted us to have.

Thankfully, years later we had the opportunity to go back and do that trip the right way. Stayed at the Westin Hotel right on Ka’anipali Beach for 10 days, rented a convertible, snorkeled with sea turtles, ate and drank like kings for free compliments of DH’s work vendors (the trip was organized through his co-op), went to a luau and had the trip we should have had on our honeymoon.