Friends Honeymoon

Sam and I have been together for almost 10 years and we have been luck enough to have gone on many vacations together. With that said, we have decided to invite some of our friends with us to our honeymoon. I know that may seem kind of crazy but hear me out...

Last year Sam and I went on a cruise with his family. They took us on the cruise as a graduation present, and that also happened to be the same vacation that we got engaged! While we were on the cruise, we kept talking about how much fun a cruise would be if we had friends with us.

We knew we wanted to do a cruise with friends, but planning a big group vacation can be difficult. Getting everyone schedules organized, getting everyone to agree on a place, and getting everyone to agree on a price/budget; doing all of this would take a lot of time, energy, and conversations to have all of it work out.

Sam and I knew we were going to have a honeymoon, but we really didn't have any place we wanted to go in mind. The idea of going on another cruise got brought up and we both liked the idea. However, as we realized last year, it would be a lot more fun if we had people come with... so the "Friends Honeymoon" trip was born.

Being that it is our honeymoon, we did all the plan and picking out what cruise we are going on. We did ask around to make sure people would be available and wanting to go, but past that we really just picked what we wanted. So we'll be going on a 5 night cruise to the "Western Caribbean".

There was a few things that sold us on this cruise; one being that it's on a really cool ship and the other being interesting ports-of-call. Sam and I went to Cozumel, Mexico last year on our cruise and it will be a fun place to explore with friends. Also we are already planning for our day in Belize to go on a shore excursions, which includes tubing through caves and waterfall lagoons.

What is great about this trip is that it's our honeymoon, so either our friends will make it work and come, or they won't. (But I know many of them will be coming.) We set up the trip through a travel agent so the collecting of money and other planning details can go through her. It's always nice when the stress of a trip can be put on someone else (who knows what they're doing). All I know is that, Sam and I have our deposit in and our room picked out; so we'll be going on our honeymoon no matter what.

If you ask me what the best part of our honeymoon is... its not immediately after the wedding. I never understood leaving right away to go on a honeymoon. There is so much stress when it comes to planning a wedding, that planning a big vacation at the same time just seems silly to me. Plus, we'll be getting married in October but we'll leave for the honeymoon during the winter. It will be so nice to go on a vacation and leave Chicago during the coldest time of the year.

I'm very excited about the "Friends Honeymoon" and it should be a great time.

Question: Would you prefer to go on your honeymoon right after the wedding? Or give yourself a buffer and go on a honeymoon a few months later?