9 myths about your honeymoon debunked

Jo Piazza, Managing Editor

Everyone tells you that your honeymoon has to be the best vacation of your life. How is that realistic? (Photo: Jo Piazza)

Having the perfect honeymoon is a lot to live up to, especially in the age of social media, where everyone expects to see the picture-perfect couple on their picture-perfect vacation.

Right after I got married in September, my new husband and I took a honeymoon to Tulum in Mexico. The first night there I got wicked food poisoning and was ill for the next three days. The beaches were covered in stinky seagrass and the mosquitos ate my weakened body alive.

I was so sick in this picture, but I felt like social media NEEDED a happy honeymoon pic. (Photo: Jo Piazza)

Still, it ended up being great. I loved getting away as a newly married couple. But was it the best vacation we have ever taken together or that we will ever take together? Nope. And that was perfectly OK.

There are a lot of myths and misconceptions surrounding the modern honeymoon, and it’s time we had some frank talk about them.

1. It will be the best vacation you will ever take in your entire life. Your honeymoon should be great. But it might not be the best trip of your life and that is OK. When I was getting married everyone asked me, “How will you ever choose a honeymoon if you travel all the time?” It’s a lot of pressure to have the greatest vacation of your life. The truth is that perfect honeymoons are mainly clever marketing by resorts, cruise lines, and countries with beautiful beaches. It wasn’t until relatively recently that the honeymoon was even a thing that was upheld as the MOST romantic, MOST perfect, and MOST Instagrammable vacation of all time.  

Take some time to relax, but you don’t need to completely turn off all your electronics if you don’t want to. (Photo: Jo Piazza)

2. You have to completely unplug. Do what feels right for you. If having a full inbox when you get home will stress you out more than checking email once a day, check the email once a day. It’s your honeymoon and your rules.

3. You should spend every single waking moment together. You don’t spend every waking minute together in a marriage, and you don’t have to during the honeymoon. If one of you likes to zipline and the other is afraid of heights, it is OK to go out and have an adventure on your own. It just gives you something to talk about over dinner.

My husband likes to snorkel and I don’t. So off he went on his own while I binge watched The Affair. (Photo: Jo Piazza)

4. Your honeymoon sets the stage for the rest of your marriage. The French philosopher Balzac once said, “The fate of the house hangs on the first night.” God bless, Balzac, but the man was only married for five months. No single day or night will decide the fate of your marriage.  

5. You have to go far away. Your honeymoon should be a trip that is special to the two of you. Too many couples choose their honeymoon destinations based off of what their friends have done or of honeymoons they’ve seen celebrities take in the pages of glossy magazines. The truth about celebrity honeymoons is that most of the celebrities get those trips paid for or comped by the resorts they are visiting. They often sell their photos from the trip to offset the cost. And in those pictures you will see only the pretty bits of the moon. Never base your honeymoon off of what someone else did. Find something meaningful for the two of you that you will both enjoy.

Just spending time alone together is enough to make your honeymoon truly excellent. Don’t worry about the rest. (Photo: Nick Aster)

6. You have to take three weeks off work. I will say it again. It doesn’t matter how far away you go or how long you spend away. The point of a honeymoon should be to spend some quality time together as a newly married couple, nothing more and nothing less. I know some couples who took a long weekend to a nearby national park and had a smashing time. I know others who took a month-long sojourn to Tahiti and came back ready to kill one another. Your honeymoon is what you make of it.

7. You have to spend a lot of money. Too many hotels and resorts capitalize on the concept of the honeymoon and jack up the prices of rooms and activities when they find out someone is taking a honeymoon. Once everything is paid for, you should definitely mention to the staff that you are on honeymoon. At the very least this will get you a free bottle of champagne, but up until then you could get nailed with a “honeymoon tax,” since resorts know they can charge you more for a “once-in-a-lifetime” vacation. I love a bargain. Use all of the tools at your disposal to try to find great deals on your trip. Just because it is your honeymoon doesn’t mean you have to splurge.

Don’t let anyone else’s honeymoon influence yours. (Photo: Jo Piazza)

8. You only get one honeymoon. This does not have to be a once-in-a-lifetime vacay…even if you don’t have as many marriages as Mariah Carey (congratulations again Mariah) I’m taking two! We had a small getaway to Tulum in Mexico right after the wedding (totally necessary to decompress), and next month we will take a bigger trip to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. Who says you can only have one moon? No one. Take as many as you like and call them whatever you want. The important thing about a honeymoon is that it is a time to get away with your new spouse to create new shared memories and adventures.

9. You have to feel all of the happy feelings all of the time. Some people actually get depressed on their honeymoon. It’s normal.

“Of course there is such a thing as post-wedding blues,” clinical psychologist Laurie Sanford  told me. “This occurs despite the happiness you know you should feel about the way the wedding went or despite the love that you still know you have for your partner. It’s just a natural process, the way emotions work. It’s so normal to feel a depression, a letdown, a sense of fatigue, and it often happens on the honeymoon. It’s a natural emotional slump.”

So if you start to feel weird after your wedding, remember it’s normal and you’re normal. Order another margarita and relax!

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