RelationTrips: Honeymoonstruck

RelationTrips

By Keith Epstein
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, August 19, 2001

If only travel writers could rack up frequent-flier miles for every question they get about honeymoons. One of the most common: “Where can we go where we’ll have enough to do?”

Not a good omen. Maybe it’s me, but I always thought just hanging a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door was plenty of outside activity.

Still, I try to be helpful and suggest the benefits of Basse-Terre vs. the drawbacks of Bosnia — a romantic island in the West Indies where you can buy crusty baguettes, dine on spicy crayfish and wander arm-in-arm across isolated beaches, compared with, say, experiencing gunfire outside your honeymoon suite. Guadeloupe is, in fact, a good low-key destination, with places such as Auberge de la Distillerie (800-322-2223), a 19th-century inn nestled between pineapple fields and rain forest in the shadow of an active volcano; you can climb the beast or head for the beach. As for Bosnia, you’re on your own.

But when people focus too much on activities and destinations — especially honeymooners — I’m tempted to suggest a desert island. At least there, a couple can make their own pleasure and connections with each other — learn to enjoy and survive each other. Or failing that, vote each other off the island and get an annulment before it’s too late.

As I write this, I am in Santa Fe, N.M., (itself not a bad honeymoon destination) and — I am not making this up — listening to the couple at the next table argue over wedding and honeymoon plans. This has been going on for at least two hours, as if the topic were stem cell research. Should they serve asparagus hollandaise or walnut arugula salad at the reception? Should they honeymoon in Aruba or Bermuda? (No contest, I would say: Bermuda. Go for a cottage and hammock by the turquoise sea at Michael Douglas’s place, Ariel Sands, 800-468-6610, www.arielsands.com.) The guy looked bored. His bride-to-be didn’t seem to notice.

Sometimes I feel like shaking tender young shoulders and saying, “Hey, discuss the real issues! It’s not where you’re going now but how you’ll handle the burdens of life together — the post-honeymoon! How will you communicate and compromise? How will you handle children? Who cares what you serve at your reception, when you can discuss forever the merits of asparagus versus arugula?”

But I admit it’s been a long time, and who wouldn’t yearn for the complications of young love, such as the following quandary:

Q My fiance and I set a tentative date for our wedding, next spring, and planned to honeymoon in Ireland. But then my younger sister got engaged. She set her date for this November. Because my parents will be paying for both weddings, they asked me to wait until a year after my sister’s wedding, to give them time to recover financially. I am honestly not upset about this. However, I still want to go to Ireland for our honeymoon. And Ireland in December is nowhere near the lush green Ireland of May. Neither of us has any desire to do the tropical island thing (I hate the sun, he can’t swim), which seems to be the only December option. Our alternatives are to a) put off the honeymoon or b) put off the wedding. I hate to delay our wedding a year from the original date. Taking a honeymoon months after the wedding makes it less special. Is there a wonderful third alternative I’m missing?

Lorelle Anderson

Wheaton

A Absolutely, Lorelle. The alternative is c) accept responsibility forthwith. If it’s hard on your parents financially, if you’re old enough to say “I do,” if you really want to go to Ireland that badly, then have a small wedding now and pay for it yourself. See Ireland this autumn, when it’s less expensive. It’s always green — and definitely worth eloping to, if it comes to that.

With the average cost of an American wedding now topping $18,000, an average honeymoon lasting nine days and costing $3,000, and with grooms and brides getting older, maybe it’s time young couples realized if they’re old enough to tie the knot they’re old enough to foot the bill.

Unfortunately, says Bonnie Greenberg, a Bethesda psychologist, “many women, from the time they’re little girls, start dreaming about weddings and have it kind of choreographed in their minds a certain way. It becomes larger than life, and sometimes puts people in a bind if it doesn’t work perfectly or financially it’s not reasonable.”

Her advice: Be more flexible. It’s great practice for the rest of marriage.

My advice: Check the Web site of the Irish Tourist Board, www.ireland.com.ie, which has a nifty feature to help you personalize an itinerary. You might head for the magical Dingel Peninsula, the highly romantic and green setting for “Ryan’s Daughter,” complete with cliffs over the ocean, shipwrecks, people speaking Gaelic, and ancient beehive-shaped huts where hermits meditated 1,400 years ago. Be forewarned, though: On rainy days people tend to say, “Good Irish weather we’re having, eh?”

And if you can’t be flexible, Lorelle, put off your wedding as your parents wish and go to New Zealand next December. It will be green, and there are plenty of sheep.

Got a question about your RelationTrip? Keith Epstein will be available for questions Monday at 2 p.m. during the Travel section’s weekly Internet chat at www.washingtonpost.com. You can post questions in advance, or join the chat live.

Or write: RelationTrips, The Washington Post Travel section, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington D.C. 20071. Fax: 703-935-0064. E-mail: keith@relationtrips.com.

© 2001 The Washington Post Company