Wedding Blog
Generally speaking, I am a very good decision maker. I make decisions on important things and I don’t look back. And, for the most part, I am happy with my decisions.
There have been a few exceptions to that rule since I started planning this wedding. The first time I had a hard time making a decision was when we had to choose a photographer. For some reason, that was very difficult for me. I ended up making a decision, but it hurt my brains. The second time, practically a year later, is our honeymoon.
This decision has been so difficult for Mr. Cream Puff and I that we have put it off as long as possible. We really want to have a fun honeymoon, but we would also like to buy a house at some point before we die and fund the business Mr. CP would like to get started. We would love to go to Tahiti and stay in huts with glass floors, but we just can’t afford it right now.
So for awhile, we were thinking about Kauai. Although Kauai looks beautiful, I’d really like to leave the country. When we found out that it would cost us roughly the same amount of money to go to Hong Kong and China in November or December, we decided to take a mini-moon in Big Sur and go to Asia later on. However, after talking with FMIL Puff, it looks like prices for that area are going up and we can’t afford it.
One of my friends told me about a great place in Jamaica…and ever since, we haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Unfortunately, it’s a little bit out of our budget–but we might do it anyway. Then, over Passover this weekend (Happy Passover to all the Jewish bees, by the way!), we heard about a place in Ecuador with hot springs. It sounded pretty snazzy. The thing about Ecuador is that it’s not as much of a destination as the place in Jamaica. It is, however, about a thousand bucks less. ACK! This decision hurts my brains.
Has anyone else had difficulty choosing a honeymoon destination? What did you end up doing?
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Yes! Mr. Jasmine and I must have considered every location on the planet. First we wanted to go to various places in Europe and all were nixed because of the cost. Then we considered a Caribbean cruise. Then we thought abuot India. Then we thought about French Polynesia. Finally, we agreed on Hawaii which meets all of our criteria. And it turns out we’re going to Europe a month after our honeymoon anyway for a dear friend’s wedding. But I feel your pain– it was so difficult to choose a place.
we’re trying to save up to put down a deposit on a house next year and don’t have a ton of money left to spare. i also really wanted an “experience” rather than just laying on the beach somewhere tropical with a nice hotel (which is perfect for many brides, but i’ve always got to be contrary). so right now we’re trying to decide between staying in treehouses in costa rica or taking a several week road trip across the united states (neither of us have seen much beyond the east coast).
Ditto what Miss Jasmine said! I always dreamed of Maldives, but the timing wasn’t right and cost was too high. Then we looked at Hawaii, Mexico, Caribbeans, Greek Isles, Capri, basically every beach you can think of. Finally, bora bora here we come!
It was very very mentally taxing to price out every option (flights, hotels, taxes, food) especially for some places, theres multiples flights and transfers and foreign exchange risk.
whew! its like finance class and opportunity costs all over again!
YES! I’ve said the hardest decision so far was the honeymoon!! So many nice places to go, but we don’t have a big enough budget to afford it (saving for a house too!)!! We really wanted to go to the Atlantis in the Bahamas, but that thought disappeared quick when we saw the cost. After a few months, we actually decided on Puerto Vallarta Mexico - it looks amazing, and was priced very fairly….
Good luck!!
thailand is reasonable still, no?
lol…we are clueless as to where we are going for the honeymoon and we are officially 6 months out.
we are pretty sure it will be within driving distance for most of the reasons you listed as well.
i’ve got a sinking feeling that this decision wont be finalized until well into the summer…..
Originally, the plan was to go to Puerto Rico. It was so hard to pick somewhere to go after paying for a wedding and still trying to…you know…live. Then we changed that because we were going to MoBay, Jamaica this summer, so he said let’s just do something small, but I wanted to go somewhere exotic, out of the country and I didn’t want to wait until July. So, then it turned into the Domincan Republic. Then it turned into St. Thomas U.S.V.I. Guess where we ended up? Oh so exotic LAS VEGAS! I soooo didn’t want to do that, especially since we live in California and have been there like…..a lot, but I sucked it up because I knew we were going to Jamaica. Guess what? We just got a truck(we really needed one, my 15 year old son is 6′4), so Jamaica is out. We lost our deposit and I lost my trip! So, we are going to either go to Puerto Rico, or New Orleans next year for our anniversary. I think I am satisfied with that.
I am one of those people that never buys something that’s not on sale, so this whole wedding planning process has me uptight about finances and I haven’t even selected a date/venue yet! I can definitely understand your point about the honeymoon. I haven’t traveled much, but I have looked into a lot of options because I would like to travel one day and there are definitely ways to save money and still have a great time. My first trip (and only big trip so far) out of the country was to Ireland, which was surprisingly fun and very affordable. Perhaps you can still have a great honeymoon by thinking a little outside the box? Those gorgeous relaxing beach getaways always seem to be the most expensive for some reason, but there are tons of travel sites that can help you save money, and if you want to save even more you could decide something last-minute? I would definitely recommend you check out the Travelzoo Top 20 (sign up at http://www.travelzoo.com/). I get it emailed to me every week because I like to browse the savings and there are some awesome deals on there. Good luck! 
Banos the place in Ecuador with the hot springs is beautiful, but there’s not much there. The Galapagos Islands are wonderful too, but would cost more than Banos. You might consider Peru. It has lots of stuff to do and is very economical. Machu Picchu is gorgeous.
Such a tough choice - we were all over the map in our initial plans. We decided that it was most important to go somewhere warm (we live in SF, which is surprisingly chilly in the summer - we’ll be gone in October for the honeymoon, which is usually the nicest month). That said, we’re not much in the way of beach bums, so we wanted a place where we could kayak, snorkel and check out interesting things, preferably in a way that was as eco-friendly as possible (which included NOT spending all day on a plane).
Belize - here we come! It’s definitely more money than we thought, but his parents are chipping in two help out as a wedding gift. Woo hoo!
We’re 5 months out and haven’t thought of anything for the honeymoon! Although I can’t complain as I’m living in the most romantic city in the world, a week at the beach seems wonderful.
WOW! Paris. I wouldn’t even know where to go for a honeymoon starting from that point….
roadtripping up to canada turns out to be a fun idea =)
Definitely in this boat… we’re using a timeshare in Mexico because it’s a steal… even though it’s smack in the middle of hurricane season. Could be an adventure! But I’m not of the school of thought that your honeymoon must be a break-the-bank, travel-first-class-all-the-way experience. I want to relax and unwind with my new husband. If the weather doesn’t hold out, we’ll just have to think of something fun to do indoors…
While it hasn’t been the hardest decision, we’ve also struggled with the honeymoon. We happily decided on Greece. But, with the weak dollar, we started to think about Hawaii. The airfare is lower since we’re on the west coast, but we still weren’t sure it would be any cheaper in the long run since food and other living expenses are so expensive in Hawaii and Greece is less expensive relative to Europe. Finally we bit the bullet and bought tickets to Greece… but we still have second thoughts every time the dollar inches down. It’s so disappointing, because instead of being excited about such a wonderful vacation, we’re all nerves!!
Ah, yes! I wanted to go to Italy, but realized that I don’t really need to squeeze the magnificance of both getting married AND Italy into 1 month of my life! Plus, Italy is a (big) tad expensive and it’s rough to budget the cash and time off work when there’s also a wedding going on.
We ended up finding a way to get out of the country somewhere both tropical AND interesting without breaking the bank. We found an excellent package to Costa Rica!
We too found a great package for Costa Rica, and it met all our requirements - a great balance between action and relaxation.
Good luck finding the right place!
Have you had anyone check the asia travel agencies? You should still be able to get decent deals on Hong Kong or Thailand. I’m in LA and am going on my honeymoon next month and I got a great deal from an asia agency. Flight to HK + 5 nights hotel in HK + flight to Bangkok w/food and activities for 6 days in Thailand and flight back to LA for only $1,550/person! If I can get that deal in LA, it shouldn’t be much different for the Bay Area. Let me know if you want my travel agents number in case you want to call her and find out what you she can do for you.
honeymoon planning is SO hard. 1) it’s important to you & your FI bc its your honeymoon, but on top of that everyone is asking you about it from the time youre engaged, so you feel you have to have someplace nice to tell them. 2) it’s a big expensive vacation! normally you could scrimp some days, splurge on others, but since its your HONEYMOON you feel the need to splurge a lot! 3) there are sooooo many beaches in this world, so little time As for us we decided early on to do hawaii since we’ve traveled a lot together out of country & well hawaii has a good reputation… but we felt like everyone goes to hawaii for their honeymoon, so we decided to do a cross country trip first, then going to hawaii. makes it more fun & special to us. but then we saw that tahiti would only be a bit more, and we wavered A LOT. finally bit the bullet & planned our cross country/hawaii trip… now that it’s booked i cant wait!
Honeymoon planning has been a sore spot for me because I want to go somewhere different, preferably out of the country, but like so many others here, would rather save up for a house. So we are being responsible and perhaps to others even anti-bride by going to the state that we are considering relocating to and checking out their scenic and natural areas and other things to do.
So even though it isn’t Italy or the Carribean or other typical honeymoon spots, at least it’s good planning and we’ll still enjoy ourselves. I figure we’ll have a nice house we can live in for many years sooner than later, and I’m planning to take our Italy trip on our 5-year anniversary (since we’ll have the house down payment by then already).
typome, that’s actually smart. You can only do what you can do and you have to prioritize. We are nowhere near ready to purchase a home, but if we were, I wouldn’t try to stress myself out on a honeymoon either. I love the thought of traveling to exotic and romantic locales w/ my husband, but I love the thought of moving into a home even more! I would probably do something way more local and stay in a nice hotel and just have a good time that way.
We are also going to Costa Rica, that is where we got engaged so its fitting we return a year later for our honeymoon. I highly recommend it! Not as touristy as mexico or other carribbean destinations, yet gorgeous, romantic and interesting. We loved it as there was more to do and see than lie on the beach.
Thanks mlindsey, it’s a bit hard explaining it to people who have their expectations and judgments, but I just have to funnel them out and like you said, assign my priorities!
We looked all over the world for spots and we ended up going with Banff. But mainly, the reason we looked all over the world (well, FI as I put him in charge of this) was he found a great site, Vacation Rentals By Owner (vrbo.com) which is basically like renting an apartment or house instead of a hotel, which is great because it has privacy and a full kitchen, which will save us tons of money. Just a thought!
We settled on Jamaica. We don’t want to spend the money to go much farther away, and though we’d love to go to Europe we both agreed that we’d need more than 1 week to really enjoy that kind of trip. I also looked into Costa Rica and Belize, because they are a bit less touristy, but there just didn’t seem to be the same kind of “resort” feel to those locations. I really wanted an all-inclusive for the honeymoon, since I can envision wanting to do nothing much besides sitting on the beach and sipping daiquiris.
I’ve been to Ecuador, and loved it–though it’s probably not where I would go for a honeymoon, if I were looking for relaxation and comfort.
I’m still waffling on this, but I kinda think that the honeymoon is not necessarily the time for the vacation-to-end-all-vacations. Like, I think it’s possibly a perfect time for one of those vacations that thinks a little smaller–you know, somewhere that might not be that far away, but you treat yourselves to some more luxury than usual and look at things in a new way and really focus on each other and really indulge in relaxation…
We had exactly the same problem with honeymoon planning, and in fact didn’t come to a decision until about 3 weeks before the wedding…. I’ve always dreamed of a fabulous honeymoon somewhere tropical, but after paying for the wedding we were b-r-o-k-e.
I strongly second Gigglebride’s suggestion of following the Travelzoo Top 20. The website (www.travelzoo.com) also has other good specials that don’t quite make the 20. We couldn’t have done our honeymoon without Travelzoo — 4 of our 5 hotels were specials from TZ. And in fact so were our own and our guests’ hotels for the wedding!
The honeymoon has hurt my brain too! I really wanted to go out of the country, I even dragged FI to get passports earlier this year. However due to many other things going on in our life other than the wedding we hadn’t planned anything. Our wedding is less than a month away and we still didn’t have anything until yesterday… My grandma called and said she got us her timeshare in Kauai for the week after the wedding. So, in some ways it was planned for us and we are saving lots of mulah!
My FI and I are planning on going to go to Europe for 2 weeks. We’re getting married in Oct, no honeymoon plans have been made yet, but I know we will try to do all we can to save as much moola as possible. Also, we’d like to go after the wedding in Oct, esp to Germany for Oktoberfest…but are thinking about going next spring (2009) instead. We’ve been saving for our house for the past 5 years or so…but saving extra 6 months after the wedding, will help too. It will also give us a chance to settle into the new casa. We’ll see! Good Luck!
4 days before our honeymoon (talk about procrastination) we went to Jet Blue’s website and nabbed one of their last-minute deals to a place in Riviera Maya. It was a great deal for a week at an all-inclusive resort and it was perfect. We enjoyed it so much (and saved enough) that we are going back this year!
Wow, you guys are SO FULL OF HELPFUL ADVICE! THANK YOU!!!
We had never heard of travelzoo. This looks amazing!! I am also feeling better to know that it’s actually humanly possible to wait until right up to the wedding to book your honeymoon. I don’t know why this has made me so nervous (the time factor, I mean)…a few years ago we booked a trip to Mexico a month before we left, and it was fine.
@brendalynn–that was pretty much my thought about ecuador, too. It seemed like that hot springs place was really cool, but not exactly a DESTINATION.
@stressgirl–we pretty much left the whole HK/China thing to FMIL Puff, because she goes almost every year. I think the issue right now is the value of the dollar. I’m not sure. I may ask her to check into it a little more. After all, I DID already get the Fodor’s handbook!! 
We were thinking about Costa Rica for awhile, and Belize was our number 1 pick…until we realized that it would be right smack in the middle of hurricane season. Momma Puff would probably melt away from all the worrying she’d be doing. So we decided to save those trips for later.
Thank you SO much for all your helpful advice, you guys! You rock!!
[...] my last honeymoon post, we got to talking about what we wanted out of our honeymoon. After awhile, I realized that I [...]
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Mrs. Cream Puff, San Francisco Bay Area
Age and Occupation: 25, Illustrator
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 31, Merchandise Planner
Engagement Date: May 27, 2007
Wedding Date: August, 2008
Blogging Since: February 7, 2008
Venue: Ceremony at Crissy Field and Reception at the Green Room
About Me: I never dreamed about my wedding as a little girl because I was too busy playing in the mud or pretending to be Martha Stewart–but now that it's here, I'm having a fabulous time DIYing everything in sight! We’re planning a very fun multicultural wedding (I'm Jewish and Mr. Cream Puff is Chinese), filled with as many personal details as I can muster.
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