Putting the flight before the ceremony: honeymoon planning
October 11, 2011
Not that we haven’t attempted going at it forward but the few months of planning over the summer was fraught with other deadlines, an incredible amount of travel for other obligations. As usual, it seemed like everyone else’s lives came first. And as we did our research for the very simple, very small budget wedding I wanted to aim for, more bits fell off the wagon than stayed on.
I still haven’t figured out what to do about the guest list as far as the question of the whole of my family, for one. I’ve had long heartfelt talks with my closest friends who know the history, know my mind, and me. I’m conflicted because what I want to do is not what I need to do. My willingness to cut out my family out of the wedding isn’t only my personal choice. No matter how much my dad says he’s willing to bear the fallout, it’s a sacrifice that he’ll have to live with. And I will have trouble knowing I’ve contributed to complicating his relationships and somewhat tenuous support system.
So instead of dealing with it, and the parks that won’t cooperate by costing less than actual venues by the end of all the fees, taxes or restrictions, we resigned ourselves to not making the November date and backburnered the wedding.
Not the honeymoon planning, though!
We were gifted an enormously generous gift for the wedding: a week in a timeshare. That came with an expiration date, so we had to get on that straightaway.
After searching the world over for available locations, which my confused Twitter followers might remember from my very random tweets one night (Me: British Virgin Islands? Netherlands? Sweden? Paris? Spain?), we found that we had, in fact, very few choices because everything is meant to be booked a year in advance and we were hoping to finish this whole wedding business sooner rather than later.
Change of plans
A more exotic locale, improperly researched or timed for the high season can easily burst your budget. Doing similar research, comparing prices on airfare as a starting point, I found that the initial places that sounded fun to us (Australia and New Zealand) were easily twice as costly during the months we speculated about traveling. With my visions of belt tightening on our honeymoon, we were happy to turn our feet to a different path as well.
We’re going to Hawaii!
It’ll be a more manageable trip insofar as flights management and time management go. We won’t fly for a day and a half just to get to our destination, and we won’t be paying nearly $4000 just for flights. Instead, it’ll be a morning’s flight there, and a day coming back. I might even be able to wrangle enough points or miles to pay for the flights themselves. This is still a work in progress.
Neither of us are emotionally invested in the specific vacation or destination. It’d be cool to be going somewhere really cool, but at the end of the day we’ll be happy to relax, eat good food and not incessantly worry if we’re going over budget.
Can’t you elope???? Guess not…I knew people with similar issues–they got married abroad and their trip turned into their honeymoon. Maybe you could get married in Hawaii.
Would a second ceremony be of any use in terms of family issues? You read about this happening in places – a legal and then a church ceremony. One a part, the other serious…Just a thought. Hawaii sounds pretty exotic to me – yet to go there!
Part should have been party!
I was going to suggest the same thing as Frugal Scholar …. how about you and your significant other just go off and get married? Is there a specific reason why you must bother with a guest list at all if it’s causing not only stress but the inability for you guys to even GET married in the first place? Take the plunge and just do it. The spouse and I had a nice ceremony with only our closest family and friends sharing the day with us. At the time, he was a foreigner in my country (I’ve been a foreigner in his for years now!) and his family wasn’t able to fly to a different continent for a wedding. My extended family fight like cats and dogs and I couldn’t face it. Small wedding, 11 people including the bride and groom LOL NO regrets.
I don’t really have an advice to whether you should or should not invite the fam but just remember one thing that a lot of bride tends to forget. It’s your day and no one else. Celebrate the day you and your husband will forever be bind they way you want it. Weddings should be a celebration for you not the friends and family. If you wish for them to be there to celebrate with you then by all means have them there but don’t stress too much about it. That day should be a effortless happy moment.
Ah, Hawai’i! That is romantic.
Frugal Scholar has got something there.
After my mother began to run amok with the wedding plans, my father quietly bribed my soon-to-be groom to elope with me. He gave us enough money to furnish our two-bedroom apartment with mostly new furniture.