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This entry is from our Expert Guest series where wedding and honeymoon professionals share their best tips on creating memories that last a lifetime.
Much like weddings, there’s this idea that a honeymoon has to be a once-in-a-lifetime fantasy trip. But the reality is, you have your whole marriage and lives ahead of you for those trips. Planning a wedding comes with enough pressure—your honeymoon shouldn’t be one more thing adding to it, so here’s a few quick tips to help decide on and plan for a trip that’s going to be relaxing and fun.
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1) Make sure you’re planning the kind of trip that’s right for you.
The more elaborate a trip, the more planning that may involve alongside your wedding planning—and the more energy and stress it may entail when you actually get there. So be realistic about the amount of travel planning you can take on and what kind of travel is really right for you after the wedding.
Take into account how much work your wedding is going to be when making your honeymoon plans. And remember what looks dreamy and romantic on paper doesn’t always play out that way IRL (in real life). For example, maybe your dream trip is hiking Macchu Picchu, but is strapping on a 30-pound backpack for a week really what you want to be doing after hosting a DIY wedding?
My dream honeymoon was to the Amalfi Coast, and it was definitely as beautiful as I remembered from college, but relaxing? Not so much. There were stairs to everything everywhere—nearly 20 flights from our cliffside apartment to the nearest restaurant, and another 5 down to the beach. Add to that the fact that my now-husband doesn’t speak Italian, so I also had to spend the week translating. We still had a great time, but if I had to do it over? I’d trade the “dream honeymoon” for a week of laying on the beach.
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2) Split up or delegate planning duties.
This can be easier said than done, as often one of you is the “planner,” but it will be far less stressful if the person who’s taken the lead on the wedding hands over the reins for the honeymoon, or if you split up different aspects of planning (one person handles flights, the other hotels, etc.)
Or, enlist outside help! Travel agents very much still exist, often charging nominal or no fees, and many specialize in honeymoons. Or maybe you have a friend or sibling who loves travel planning and would happily help you out as their wedding gift to you.
Photo by Gerhard Gellinger from Pixabay
3) Make things easier on your budget by setting up a Honeyfund and also putting wedding expenses on credit cards that earn points.
If your honeymoon is more important to you than replacing housewares you already have or saving for a home, setting up a Honeyfund is a great way to let your loved ones know that, and enable them to get you something that feels more like a gift than just cutting a check.
Similarly, chances are that you’re already spending a sizeable chunk of money on your wedding, so make sure you’re doing it in a way that earns you travel rewards that you can apply to your honeymoon. The only caveat: just don’t use that as an excuse to take on debt!
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Bio: Keriann Kohler is the Director of Partnerships at A Practical Wedding, a woman-owned media company that focuses on wedding planning and relationships.
Probably everyone who has been married in their life has felt the stress of planning a honeymoon, because this is a very serious and appropriate situation when you want everything to be wonderful. But we should not forget that excessive stress does not have any positive consequences, which is why you need to be able to avoid such stress. Personally, I do it through reading, but it relaxes me a lot. The last time I read a few essays about the book “Fahrenheit 451” on the site and I really liked it, so this will be the next book that I will start reading and I recommend you know a good book, then read it, because reading relaxes and distracts from stress.