European Honeymoon

Stacey & Kevin’s European Honeymoon

Kevin and I wanted to go somewhere really special after our wedding and after many discussions on where to go we decided that the prefect honeymoon trip for us was to do a short tour of Europe. It was a crazy, whirlwind trip to some of the most beautiful places in the world! Relaxing it was not, but it was nothing short of perfection!

Our first destination was to Barcelona, Spain. We spent our first few days walking every inch of the city. We saw the Olympic village and stadiums, the fabulous architecture by Gaudi, ate tapas and paella by the ocean and toured the fabulous art museums. It was a fantastic beginning to an amazing trip!

From Barcelona we flew to Venice, Italy. We didn’t spend much time in Venice, (a day and a half) but it was just the right amount of time to be able to see all of the major sites. We walked the city, ate gelato (Stacey’s most favorite thing in the entire world!), toured churches and walked the bridges. It is the most romantic place and we highly recommend going there at least once in your life!

Our favorite honeymoon moment came in Venice. We had a great Italian dinner and then walked through the famous St. Mark’s square on our way back to our hotel. The cafés that line the square have 6 piece classical bands that perform for patrons sitting outside in the night air. But because there are several cafes and each one has their own band, it becomes a battle of the bands at night. Each one will play a few songs and as soon as their set is over the next café’s band starts to play. We sat on the square and ordered a bottle of champagne and just watched and listened. It was so romantic and so classically European!

From Venice we flew to Paris, France where we spent 3 wonderful (and very cold) days walking and exploring the city. We did many of the tourist things that everyone does when they go to Paris: Climbed to the top of the Eifel Tower; went to the museums, took a boat ride at dusk on the Seine. We ate fabulous French food and drank fabulous French wine. The only drawback was it was about 30 degrees colder than it normally is at that time of the year! Even with the cold, it was the perfect excuse to do more honeymoon snuggling!

After three glorious, cold days in Paris we took the train to London. We saw Big Ben, London Bridge, Buckingham Palace and the guards, and we walked through great little London neighborhoods and parks. We rode the London Eye which was such a cool experience to see the city from that high up – you can see everything when you get to the top! Both nights we were in London we had amazing Indian food, which is one of our favorite things to eat, and we even went to a pub for fish, chips and a pint!

The entire trip was so fantastic! We have a ton of memories (and even more pictures!) and it was the perfect way for us to celebrate our marriage!

Santorini, Greece

PicturesbyTracy: A recent couples honeymoon in Santorini, Greece.....

We went to Santorini, Greece for our honeymoon. It was absolutely beautiful there! We stayed at the Canavas Oia and stayed in the town of Oia. We wanted to do something special and unique for our first trip as newlyweds and we succeeded! It was the perfect amount of relaxation and exploration! We spent our first two days in Athens, Greece and saw the Parthenon, Olympic Stadium, Lycabettus Hill and all of the other tourist things that you should see while you are there! Then we flew to the Greek Island of Santorini and spent the majority of our time relaxing by the water, eating delicious greek food, and checking out all of the cafes, wineries, marinas and churches!





The people were so friendly and laid back, and every tourist that we met was on their honeymoon! Santorini is known for its beautiful sunsets, elaborate churches, and white buildings with blue roofs and windows. The view looked like it was right from a postcard! I would definitely recommend checking out Santorini, it was a great honeymoon spot.

Congratulations Jen & Matt! Thank you for sharing your experience in Greece on our DW blog!

Ocho Rios, Jamaica

Nina & Vlad: Honeymoon

We went to Ocho Rios, Jamaica for 10 days. We didn't leave for Jamaica until a week after our wedding because we didn't want to be rushing around trying to leave the Sunday after our wedding in Dayton. Plus, I knew I'd be packing at 3 am the night of my wedding! :)

We stayed at an all-inclusive Sandals resort that offers free renewal of vows ceremonies to guests if you stay a certain amount of time. During the wedding planning process of our ceremony and reception in Dayton, Vlad and I would jokingly say that maybe we should just run off and get married by the beach just the two of us, but we knew how important it was to both of us to have that one chance to have all of our family and friends in one place for a wedding in Dayton. So, when we booked our honeymoon and saw that they offered free vow renewals, we thought it would be a great opportunity to still have that quiet wedding by the beach just the two of us. So, that's just what we did. We made a reservation with the wedding departments, and then got to meet with a wedding planner (who was fantastic!) when we arrived at the resort to choose final details such as flowers (a bout and bouquet were included), ceremony and cake reception location (we chose a gazebo that looked out over the beach for the ceremony and a shaded terrace for our first dance, cake, and champagne toast), cake flavor (Caribbean fruit), and music. We just kept it super basic, and tried to choose things completely different than what we did at home. Our wedding in Dayton was pretty big, more formal, with a full Catholic Mass, and all about winter and ice blue, and so we chose warm, summer, beachy colors and super casual clothes. We both wore flip flops (I got us both "Just Married" flip flops as our fun honeymoon gift). He wore khakis and a button down shirt, and I wore a simple white dress from David's bridal because my Dayton wedding dress was ice blue.

The ceremony was short and simple and nondenominational, and it gave us a chance to recommit to each other in a much calmer, more intimate way than the whirlwind that is a wedding day. We also got to have a first dance and cake and champagne alone together in such a beautiful setting. Then, the best part was that afterwards, we could go to our room and change and go straight to the beach and enjoy some tropical drinks on the Caribbean Sea!

The rest of the honeymoon was great, as well. Great food/drinks, great service, great beach and pool. Mostly, we just did a lot of relaxing because your honeymoon really is one of the only times in your life where people just leave you alone to spend time together regardless of where you go. We had a couples spa treatment that included a body scrub and wrap, an essential oil bath, and a massage (the hubby is not a big "spa" person, but he enjoyed it). We also tried to get off the resort property and hiked up Dunn's River Falls and went on a canopy tour, which is a series of zip lines through the trees in the canopy of the rain forest (the absolute highlight of the trip). 10 days absolutely flew by! Our last night, we wanted to splurge a bit before we got back to "normal life" so we had a private candlelit dinner in a gazebo atop the waterfall at the main pool area of the resort complete with 4 course meal and white glove service. It was a fantastic way to end a great trip!

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Thank you Nina for this great post!