One of the most enjoyable parts of wedding planning to date has been making honeymoon arrangements. We decided early on that we wanted it to be fairly local, no flights required. This stems from a couple of reasons, but primarily revolves around the fact that my passport expires in August and we get married in late July. I am too cheap to want to replace my passport when I’m just going to have to have it updated with my new name anyway (assuming I change it, but we’ll get to that at a later date), so my plan is to basically change my passport directly after the wedding and not fuss with it beforehand. Secondarily, like much of the nation, I was unemployed for a stint that ended up being longer than we had anticipated last summer into the fall and that took quite a hit on our savings. We’re hoping to take a big European excursion for our first anniversary. In the meantime, I’m not very good at lying around a beach for too long. I need to be out and about exploring and soaking in everything around me. Somehow, this all pointed us in the direction of New England where I felt we could find a mix of post-wedding oceanside laziness with a healthy does of sight seeing and exploring.
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After quite a bit of research, our sights settled on Bar Harbor, Maine on Mt. Desert Island, home of Acadia National Park. The plan is to rent a little cabin along the shore, hike and bike through the park, lounge around the beach a bit, go antiquing, kayak in the mornings, take the ferry to Nova Soctia, eat lobsters and blueberries in excess, unplug from the world and just nestle up in a little world of seaside goodness. I love me a lighthouse-filled New England adventure! Earlier this week I received a confirmation in the mail that our petite oceanfront cabin is officially ours for the week after the wedding and I have been dancing around like a little kid waiting for Christmas to arrive ever since.
Our tiny cabin on the ocean complete with miniature veranda and bbq grill!
We opted to go with a cabin for a few reasons, but it basically came down to finding a happy medium between the extremely budget-friendly camping alternative (our original intention) or paying more….much more…for a more luxurious hotel room. We don’t plan to spend much time in our room anyway, so we decided that a little cabin with a bed, a bathroom, a small kitchenette and an amazing view was perfect for what we wanted. What’s better? The cost of the cabin for the entire week, including tax, will end up being a few hundred dollars less than what it would have cost to fly even one of us across the Atlantic. You can’t beat that! The best part is getting to spend a week looking at amazing scenery like this…
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Having made friends with a lot of awesome bloggers, I’ve been fortunate to have gotten some great insider’s info on what to see and do while in Maine, including great tips from the newly minted Miss Gloss over on Weddingbee . The planner in me is working on pulling together a list of things to see and do while in Maine and places to hit on our way to and from as well. We are both so excited…we’ve never taken a real vacation together so we’re really looking forward to the opportunity to just be together in some place new and exciting to us both. And hopefully I can fill the car up with wonderful antiques and paintings and fun honeymoon treasures to make a part of our new home together with some of the money we’ve saved on the trip itself.
I know I’ve been reading about a lot of other brides who have found renewed planning love while researching honeymoon possibilities. Are you one of the brides looking forward to the honeymoon as much as the wedding? Where are you off to and what are you most excited about? I can’t wait to share our great honeymoon adventure with all of you!