If you ever have planned a last-minute getaway or realised a public holiday was around the corner and jumped on the booking bandwagon late, you will know that spontaneity can be fun. But generally the best holidays are planned well in advance.
Few overseas trips are as eagerly anticipated as one's honeymoon. Why is it then that more than a few couples are left disappointed? Perhaps it is because, with all the pressure of planning a wedding, everything that comes after - an eagerly awaited romantic getaway for two included - tends to fall by the wayside. To give something your full attention you need to be focused, and surely nothing is more deserving of your full attention than your wedding. So do yourself a favour and stop trying to be superhuman. Plan your honeymoon after the wedding.
Whoever ordained that honeymoons should be embarked on the day after a wedding clearly was not married. For a start, you are exhausted. People I have spoken to who had their honeymoon the traditional way reported sleeping through the first half of it. There is nothing more romantic than coming home as man and wife. Why not enjoy the afterglow, and nurse that wedding hangover, rather than race around like a pair of headless chickens throwing beachwear into a suitcase
Another common complaint is having too little time away due to a lack of funds and annual leave in the wake of the considerable time and expense required to stage a wedding. It is not uncommon to hear of newlyweds taking honeymoons of less than one week. My husband and I had not been away for more than two weeks since we were students, so I decided a three-week break was in order. We took our honeymoon seven months late, and it was the best decision we ever made. Honeymoons should be long, indulgent affairs made for lovers - not brief, thrown-together sojourns taken by shattered bedfellows. And when else can you announce to your boss with impunity that you will not be checking e-mails for nearly a month? There is one way to avoid blowing a fuse in those final wedding weeks: by leaving those last-minute travel sites to the masses.
