As wedding industry rebounds, many honeymooners opt to stay close to home

Since Zoie Diana and her fiancé, Jake Ford, got engaged in Turin, Italy, in 2018, they had spent a year planning their May 2020 wedding and their honeymoon in Croatia and Italy. Then the pandemic gave the couple even more time to plan.

“We pushed back the wedding four times,” says Diana, a marine science and conservation Ph.D. candidate who lives with Ford in Durham, N.C.

The wedding industry estimates that it lost about a million ceremonies in the United States because of the pandemic. With many rescheduled for 2021, plus new ones on the books from pandemic proposals, this year is projected to be big for weddings — and honeymoons.

But even as more than 116 million people are fully vaccinated, and with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledging that vaccinated people can travel with less risk, planning honeymoon travel is far from back to normal. Some of the world’s most popular honeymoon destinations remain closed to tourism, and not all plan to reopen soon. That has redirected where honeymooners are traveling after tying the knot.

“We’re seeing a huge shift to domestic travel,” travel adviser Camille Autin says. “Some honeymooners didn’t make plans to get their passport in time, thinking that no trip would come to fruition; some are hesitant to travel internationally.”

Instead of Caribbean destinations, Autin has been sending honeymoon clients to the Florida Keys and Puerto Rico. She has also been sending more couples on upscale ranch honeymoons in Montana and Wyoming.

Alisa Cohen, founder of the Luxe Traveler Club agency, says the shift to domestic honeymoons is a major departure from pre-pandemic business. “Almost always before, people were leaving the country for their honeymoon,” she says.

Cohen has been sending clients to mountain towns such as Vail and Aspen, Colorado, and beaches in Rhode Island and Hawaii. When clients go abroad, it’s to places such as Mexico and the Caribbean, where honeymooners may have to do some extra legwork to get in but are more confident they can visit than other places where border openings are not as dependable.

Nora Blum, travel adviser and vice president of Travel Leaders of Maple Grove, Minnesota, says some clients are betting on Europe despite the unsure outlook.

“I’ve got some people who were booking a river cruise for Europe, and they are going, crossing fingers, at the end of September, early October,” she says.

Some couples are holding out until 2022 for their dream honeymoon, and are instead opting for “mini-moon” trips in the interim.

“They want to definitely do something now that still feels indulgent, still feels relaxing, then save that big Europe or Maldives or Asia honeymoon for later,” Cohen says.