1) If possible, go on your honeymoon right after your wedding.  Have you ever cleaned up after a wedding?  It’s not fun.  It’s late at night, you have an hour before the reception venue kicks you out, and there are 32 centerpieces and you have no clue what to do with them.  There are people rushing around looking for more trashcans, figuring out who is going to take the cake topper home, and cramming it all in the back of 5 vans.  After that?  Someone has to unpack those items & find a home for them.  And return tuxes, table linens, etc. etc. etc.  You can avoid all of that! You’re the newlyweds, so you get a free pass and no one will think twice about it.  I suggest you take that free pass & run!

2) Stay local the first night.  Our honeymoon was only a 4 hour drive away, but it was so nice to just make a 15 minute drive & chill out.  The next day we swung by the house because Josh forgot some clothes (like, all of them) and then we headed out for a leisurely drive.

3) Get the honeymoon package. This isn’t a “must have” but it was nice to treat ourselves!  It was a gift to us, which was wonderful.  It included breakfast in bed for 3 days, a dinner at a 5 star restaurant, 2 day bike rental, champagne & a couples massage.  We are super frugal on vacations so it was nice to have a few extras to celebrate that we were married!

4) Pay bills in advance.  On day 5 of our honeymoon we were checking out of the hotel and it occurred to me that I had no idea what our finances looked like for that month.  At that point we hadn’t talked about them together, and to be honest I had no idea how much he made or what bills he owed!  When we came back from our honeymoon I saw that I’d missed a payment on a credit card, which meant a late fee, and the interest rate went to 30%!  A little planning beforehand would have saved us a lot of headache on something as simple as paying bills.  Now there is online bill pay for many banks, where you can choose when the bill will be paid.  It’s great!