THE HONEYMOON IS OVER
Millennial newlyweds are saying ‘I don’t’ to long, elaborate trips in favor of short getaways, buddy vacations and even volunteering
WHEN Gina Doost and Jeff Fransen planned their picture-perfect wedding in September 2016, they were dealing with two challenges: time and money.
Doost, a 31-year-old travel blogger, and Fransen, a 37-year-old marketing specialist, didn’t have enough vacation days to take off from work, and they would also be the ones footing the bill for their wedding. They had little time or money for an elaborate honeymoon after the festivities.
“Nowadays, more people [pay for their] weddings themselves, rather than having their parents pay for it all. It takes a toll on you,” Doost, owner of lifestyle blog What the Doost and based in the Financial District, tells The Post. “We didn’t want to start our marriage broke with a huge expensive trip.”
So instead, they booked a fiveday getaway to Bermuda. It was one of several short trips—aka “many-moons” — they took in their first year of marriage. Conscious of their budget, but eager to see many destinations, they used tools such as TravelPirates, a clearinghouse for vacation bargains, to get cheap flights for long weekends in Paris, Ireland and Turks and Caicos.
“It became an adventure and more about the time we spent together in different places,” says Doost.
The traditional honeymoon is over. Couples are no longer blowing all of their savings on a multiweek trip to a far-flung locale right after their wedding. With limited time or money, and a preference for breaking tradition, millennials are re-imagining postnuptial vacations, taking mini-moons, many-moons and friend-moons, where newlyweds go on a trip with their buddies. There are even charity-moons, with couples honoring their vows by volunteering.
“We don’t really see anyone do three-week honeymoons anymore,” says Christine Rzepka, an agent with Sliva Travel Service in Troy, Mich.
The wedding-registry company Zola.com surveyed more than 1,000
“It’s great to see each other in these different environments, and we learned more about each other.” — Matt Morton, with wife LC, on taking several short trips instead of a single honeymoon
couples in June 2018 on honeymoon trends, and found that 19 percent of couples were planning alternative wedding holidays.
“People want to put their personal touch on it,” says Zola representative Emily Forrest. She traces the trend to couples tying the knot later in life, putting their careers first, and lacking the resources for two or three weeks at a resort in Waikiki. Also, the same Zola survey found that 75 percent of couples have taken a vacation together before marriage, which Forrest believes might make couples less inclined to go on an elaborate vacation right after their wedding. She took a mini-moon herself after her October 2016 nuptials.
She and her husband, David Skurnik, 31, didn’t want the stress of planning a huge trip while they were planning the wedding. And the fall is a busy time for Skurnik, who works in wine distribution, so it made more sense to just go for a long weekend in New Paltz, NY.
“Every honeymoon is a personal decision,” says Forrest, who eventually took a longer trip to Thailand several months later. “I really wanted time to . . . work on our newlywed life before we took a big adventure.”
Matt, 31, and LC Vickers Morton, a 30-year-old salon owner, say that taking several shorter trips after their 2016 wedding, to places such as Atlanta and Cancun, strengthened their marriage.
“It brought us closer together,” says Matt, a graphic designer. “It’s great to see each other in these different environments, and we learned more about each other.”
Juliette Schwab, a 31-year-old publicist, and husband Brett Caspi, a 32-year-old real estate broker, opted for travels that brought them closer, not just to each other, but to their buddies, as well.
A few weeks before their September 2017 wedding, the couple went to Mykonos, Greece, with their best man, Adam Rothstein, 32, and his wife, Samantha, 31, on a friend-moon. They had so much fun, they’re all planning to take another friend-moon, to Sonoma, Calif., in July.
“People get so stressed about planning a wedding and they lose sight of getting married,” says Schwab, who lives in Union Square with her husband. “Being with our friends, another couple who’s already gone through [marriage and understands] the highs and lows [was] definitely reassuring.”
Other couples honor their vows by giving back. Whitney WallaceShahan, 31, and husband Spencer Illig, a 35-year-old set builder, got married in early June and are going on a charity-moon next week. They’re heading to Uganda to work with underprivileged children for a month, then volunteering in Sri Lanka at an elephant conservation project through International Volunteer HQ a New Zealand-based travel company.
“Meeting these people and getting involved with them is so rewarding,” says Wallace-Shahan, a massage therapist based in Phoenix. “It just came natural to us [when planning our honeymoon]. Of course we should be helping people.”
While the couples are enthusiastic about their own travel choices, they say some friends and family are puzzled by their nontraditional honeymoons.
“They looked at us as if we were crazy,” Doost says of her husband’s parents. “They did it differently back in their day.”