You won't get your honeymoon wrong if you...
Keep it a surprise
And I mean right the way through the honeymoon! Here are my top five honeymoon tips for keeping it a surprise:
Spoof itineraries
Get your tour operator to send a few spoof itineraries home, brilliant if your wife is nosy and can't resist the temptation to peek. Get the real itinerary and documentation sent to your work address.
Pack for your wife
Ask her to leave you with a few piles of clothes - essentials, cold weather clothes, kit for adventure, stuff for a beach and a pile of smart things. You then pack for her. Even better if you then buy her some new things for the trip. The unpacking will even be a surprise.
Speak nicely to the check-in staff
There is no reason why your wife can't stand back from the check-in desk while you ask the check-in staff to keep the destination quiet. Even better, go somewhere so remote that you need a second flight to get to your first stop. Our first stop was a small island off Lombok in Indonesia. When the BA captain welcomed to the flight to Singapore I could see disappointment all over my wife's face while I spent the next 14 hours bigging up the joys of a honeymoon shopping in Singapore. When we boarded the next flight to Denpasar, she had no idea where it was and continued to have no idea until we walked through immigration to a cheery, ""welcome to Bali."" Even then we were going on from there.
Keep each stage a surprise
Assuming your trip will be split into a few pieces, only let your wife know about each section as it happens
Don't tell anyone
Not even your family and least of all your best man. That way there's no way anyone can spill the beans
Go somewhere new and learn something new...
Tempted as you might be to take your new wife to your favourite place on earth, it's so much better to explore somewhere completely new for both of you. You've got plenty of time in the rest of your life to show her some of your old favourites. While in the new vein think about learning something new together. We learned to dive in the UK doing all the boring classroom stuff here before we went. (to keep the surprise element, we also learned a few other things too!) I then made sure that every place we went had the possibility to dive. It was incredible to experience this new underwater world together.
Start with the relaxing bit....
You'll have been running on adrenalin for the last few weeks and the wedding day itself will most probably hit you for six. The likelihood is that you'll barely leave your bed for the first few days. Such a shame if you've got booked in heli-bungee-whitewater-skiing in the first few days and you can hardly keep your eyes open. Maybe even consider spending the first few days in a swanky hotel in the UK to get your energy back and head away on the Wednesday after your honeymoon Saturday.
Honeymoon crescendo...
Make sure the quality of the honeymoon be that accommodation or experience gets better with each stage. Do it the other way round and you'll both be constantly harking back to Day one.
Take three weeks...
Only the most heartless of bosses will deny your request of a three week honeymoon. On a two week honeymoon for the first week you're asleep and for the second week you're dreading coming back.
...and here are my top three don't dos!
1. Don't take your wife to somewhere you went with an ex. If you insist also consider drawing up the divorce papers before you go.
2. Don't bring your mobile phone and office email access password. Leave them at home.
3. Don't book anything on a boat unless you're sailing it yourself. There's bound to be someone on the boat who drives you both mad and the likelihood is you won't be able to get off.
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