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We started planning our "dream honeymoon" to Italy before the economy tanked. We had already bought tickets and made reservations. My FH is a fiscal conservative (i.e. republican) so he believes spending money is the best way to keep the economy going. We went full steam ahead with both the honeymoon and wedding plans despite the economy.
We had to scale back quite a bit...Our dream honeymoon would have been some exotic place in Tanzania or South Africa but because of our budget we decided to go on a cruise in the caribbean...we'll save the trip to Africa hopefully for our 1 year anniversary...
@andreaandchinelo - The cruise still sounds great! We would've done that but - our wedding is in late July so...hurricane season haha...that and I have pretty severe motion-sickness problems.
@Chela429 - That sounds great!! I did a study abroad program for 5 1/2 weeks in Italy in college- it was great!
The location we selected tends to pricery for Americans all fo the time. We had saved enough money during our engagement and booked early enough to not have to change plans.
We wanted to go to Ireland...well, we actually wanted to elope to Ireland, but our parents got wind of that plan and shut it down pretty quick.
But I'm excited about planning a wedding, so it's okay! His great-grandparents are from Ireland, and we wanted to honor his heritage. Plus, I freaking love Europe and adore traveling of all kinds. However, airfare alone would have taken a third of our budget, so we decided to go to NYC instead. I'm really excited about it, even if it's a compromise!
@Chela429: We're going to Italy as well!
My fiance and I both share a love of travel. We realize the state of the economy is going to affect us (especially with me searching for a job shortly after the wedding, due to relocation), but we also realized that our honeymoon may be our only opportunity to travel for a while.
We're not going "all out", but I think we're planning a pretty fantastic honeymoon to Italy using hotel rewards, frequent flyer miles and planning ahead to find the best deals! I don't think we're going to end up spending much more than most people would spend going to an all-inclusive resort in Mexico/The Caribbean for the same length of time. (10 days)
We also are not going into any debt for the wedding/honeymoon, and I think that's important to consider!
We have decided not to go on a honeymoon right away, except possibly a minimoon to a nearby B&B for a night or two. My FI lost his job this week, just as we were about to decide and buy tickets, so there'll be no Caribbean island for us!
Don't get me wrong we are going on a great trip, but our dream was to go to Europe. We have decided to put that off one year and go to Mexico for our honeymoon this year.
@LatteLove- Yeah, neither of us have traveled a LOT, so we don't have any rewards or miles built up unfortuneately. I think that if we had, we would still be going to Aruba...the resort and such we could afford, but the travel was so expensive (even through places like expedia and travelocity), that it just wasn't feasible.
We're both only a couple years out of college, and both just started our professional jobs within the last like, 8 months so...we still have student loans and things like that we're paying off.
@ATbride- We haven't lost our jobs, but we haven't been at them long enough to make enough money to pay off student loans, pay for the wedding, bills, etc. etc. and then still be able to afford a nice caribbean (Aruba) honeymoon where we don't have to worry about pinching pennies while we're there.
So, we're going to spend a week in the Smokies in a luxury cabin (I swear they have everything) for almost half the cost as it would have been for Aruba
Our dream honeymoon was going to Hawaii...but when I looked at tickets in October I thought we couldn't afford it.
So we started looking at Mediterranean cruises...but those plane tickets were expensive!!
So I looked at Hawaii again. And the ticket prices fell...a lot. And it turns out...our dream honeymoon was the most economical choice! So yep, we're going on our dream honeymoon!!
We had booked an amazing Sandals honeymoon in Montego Bay followed by a week at our beach house but we cancelled Sandals because we've gone overboard on the wedding and feel wrong about spending another 9000 plus on a week long vacation. We've decided to go to Niagra for a few days followed by Old Quebec City for a few days and then to our beach house for a week. My fiance is in finance and although he's been told layoffs are done for his division you never can be too certain. With the economy the way it is right now unless your the rockafellers you need to watch where your spending your money. At least that's the way we feel.
@emilybrooke - I agree. While we are both employed, and we haven't heard anything about layoffs in either of our companies...that possibility is always there.
We've also spent a pretty good chunk of money on the wedding itself, he has student loans still, I just started working professionally, etc. etc. etc.....that a $5-7k honeymoon just seemed rediculous.
We're going on a Mexican Rivera Carnival Cruise. Not necessarily our dream honeymoon, but something we've talked about doing. If money wasn't an issue, I'm sure we would have gone somewhere else, but we'll have the rest of our lives to figure that out! I'm just glad that we're able to go somewhere!
I really wanted to go to Mexico for a week, but after all the wedding expenses I just couldn't justify dropping that kind of money right now. We've both traveled quite a bit so it's not that big of a deal. I think we're going to go to Chicago and take in some sights, do some shopping and catch some Cubs games! It will be fun. We plan to save for Europe over the next few years and try to make it happen then.
Our 'dream' honeymoon is an over-the-ocean hut in Fiji, but we've known for a long time that we couldn't afford to do it 'right'. So we're spending a week on the gorgeous Cumberland Island, GA. It's a private nature reserve off of the Georgia coast, and you stay in a beautiful Inn with all meals prepared by a great chef. It might not have been the original dream, but it will definitely be a Dream Honeymoon, especially as I don't have to feel ill when considering the cost!
We're not going on our dream honeymoon, but that decision wasn't affected by the economy in any way. Our dream honeymoon would be a trip to Greece and the Mediterranean. However, because of two sets of friends getting married 2 months before our wedding, and my graduation 1 month before our wedding, my FI's vacation time is pretty much gone (he moved out of state, and will have to travel here for all 3 events). We're taking a 3-day minimoon, and are planning a longer vacation for our one-year anniversary.
I wouldn't say it's our "dream" honeymoon. But it's going to be nice (i think/hope) and we still spent a good deal. The economy hasn't directly affected us yet, but definately those around us.
My dream honeymoon would be to go spend about six weeks in Australia, but we have neither the money -- and not because of the economic down turn; we wouldn't have had the money anyway -- nor the time. I'm very excited about our trip to England and Wales, though.
We're not going on our dream honeymoon.. instead we are saving for a house, but plan to do our dream trip another year.
We are! We're both fortunate to be employed and doing fine financially, but we basically have four huge things we are focused on moneywise:
Wedding
Honeymoon
House
Savings for the Future/Paying off cars/school
We had to let one of those things slide to be able to afford the rest of it. So, we said goodbye to the wedding - it was the least important to us of those four things - and we're very happy with our decision to do so! A
As for our dream honeymoon, we'd like to take a trans-atlantic cruise, but that isn't set in stone. Our dream honeymoon is basically "get out of the country, for a while."
Our dream honeymoon was italy =) and for awhile... it looked like it was going to be too expensive. Nonetheless, I am a deal stalker... and found GREAT and CHEAP flights and now we are checking other types of accomadations than just hotels, like B and B's and home rentals =) We actually have many more options that I originally expected! So yes, our dream honeymoon will happen... but at a greatly reduced cost! =)
we had originally planned on going to greece and turkey. but the economy has really impacted the job market for phd candidates (my fiance is finishing his phd) so we're not sure if he's going to be working or still in school on a grad student stipend next year. so instead we're going to 5 nights at sandals ochos rios - $2200 for the whole trip, INCLUDING direct flights from philly. we are really excited about this, and it gives me a whole year to plan our 1 year anniversary trip to greece!
We're not going on our dream honeymoon, but that's because I'm a student and we don't have a lot of extra money, not so much because of the economy.
We're putting off our dream honeymoon (Ireland/Scotland) until hopefully our first anniversary. FI will have tenure by then, which will be another reason to celebrate!
After meeting with a financial planner, we decided that by down-scaling to a domestic honeymoon (probably Wine County or Savannah) we'll be in better shape to save enough and purchase our first home by the end of the year. That way we can take advantage of the stimulus credit and other first-time home owner perks. For us, the dream is worth delaying considering the market.
We're going on our dream honeymoon to London and Paris, but we could only afford it because we are doing a honeymoon registry. I'm a full time professional student and we've gone overbudget on our wedding so it was pretty much the only way we could make it work. We certainly don't have the best furniture or china but we'd rather go on our dream honeymoon and buy all the nice house stuff ourselves further down the road. Also, I've got 3 more years of school and then I'll hopefully be starting my own practice so it seems like it might be our only chance for quite a while.
Unfortunately, we will not be going on our dream honeymoon.
We are actually going to be delaying ours until maybe next year. We are probably going to take a weekend trip to the Poconos in PA. I've heard it's a cool little area for a nice getaway weekend and it's kind of cool that my parents had their honeymoon there too.
This thread makes me feel a little better because I know I'm not the only one in this situation. We had originally planned a beach vacation to St. John, but we simply couldn't afford it. Instead, we're taking a mini-moon about 4 hours away in our state. At least we are going to be able to get away a little bit. Maybe we'll be able to go away for our 1st anniversary. :)
We were initially going to do a minimoon first then honeymoon for our 1 year. But then we found out 2010 is the 200th Anniversary of Oktoberfest and the FI has ALWAYS wanted to go to Oktoberfest. What better time to go then the 200th Anniversary?! So I said screw it and moved our honeymoon up. Regardless the trip has still stayed the same and we both didn't want to wait a whole year to go on our honeymoon.
Oh, the HM is a hardcore, intensive, non relaxing 2 week backpacking trip through Europe. Destinations include Dublin, County Wilcox (possibly), Munich, some tiny village in Germany where the FI still has far off relatives and a forest that was named after his ancestors!, Rome, Cinque Terre, Paris, maybe Venice & Marseilles! I'm trying to see if we can make it 2.5-3 weeks. Hehe.
And I just want to explain that this will ALL be done on the cheap cheap cheap! Hostels, and cheap apartments for roughly $60/nt, cheap airfare, night trains between cities and maybe a splurge at a nice apartment/hotel in one of the cities where we go try Gordon Ramsey's restaurant! And that will be our "honeymoon"-ish treat. ![]()
Going backpacking through Europe has been a LONG time dream of ours. In particular we wanted to do it before starting a family and we plan on starting a family shortly after getting married. So not only is this our dream honeymoon but also our dream trip of a lifetime.
I don't know where we're going for our honeymoon! FI plans on doing the whole thing secretly and handing me a ticket on our wedding day. I won't know where we're going until then!
For those of you who are still waffling on whether to take your dream honeymoon, check out airfare today! A few airlines are having sales until tonight or tomorrow (varies by carrier). We got our tix to Athens on Monday for just a smidge more than half of what we budgeted. We were planning to take our dream honeymoon anyway, but that savings sure feels good. If airfare is what is holding you back, you might be pleasantly surprised.
We were given a very generous gift of a week of a timeshare that we were able to trade for a week in Belize. That made our dream honeymoon possible!
The crappy economy positively affected ours. We got an $800 discount on our *dream vacation* simply b/c we snagged it at the right time (in November for a June honeymoon). Booking early and haggling with the travel agent is allowing us to have a really really nice honeymoon. My parents were so impressed with our mad skills they offered to give it to us as a gift, though, so technically no impact on us now! But we're still paying for the whole wedding....so I guess it doesn't matter ![]()
We're staying at a high end luxury resort, all inclusive, etc, in the Dominican Republic. Can't wait! It's been soooooo long since I've had a vacation...about 5 years! My Fi has never been on one b/c his family was poor growing up, so I keep telling him he's in for a real treat!
We are going to Buenos Aires in February. We are setting aside bonus checks and monthly overages to cover the airfare and hotel. We have worked so hard on the wedding that we decided it was important for us to spoil ourselves.
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I'm just curious to see how people have been choosing their honeymoon destinations. Our original plan was Aruba, but after analyzing our budget and what we've spent already...we decided to switch to a luxury cabin/chalet in the smokies to cut travel costs and such quite bit.
Have you changed your plans for your honeymoon (or even your wedding) because of the economy right now?