The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Cash no object? Here’s how to honeymoon
Today’s high-net-worth newlyweds are taking post-nuptial holidays to a whole new level, says John O’Ceallaigh
Admittedly, the nuptials of Princess Eugenie of York and Jack Brooksbank in Windsor this week haven’t attracted as much attention as the recent wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex or Pippa Middleton’s 2017 marriage to James Matthews, but one thing everyone can get behind is a curiosity about where and how newly married couples honeymoon. While British weddings tend to be prescriptive irrespective of budget – white dress, big cake, bad dancing – honeymoons are personal. One of the most extravagant expressions of taste and aspiration a couple is ever likely to make, this is their heir chance to spend on whatever constitutes onstitutes their own trip of a lifetime. ifetime. For the lucky few untroubled by financial constraints, onstraints, the sky’s the limit. .
Co-founder of tour operator Black k Tomato, Tom Marchant t is increasingly tasked with creating complex plex itineraries for newlyweds who ho “are looking for or demanding adventure, seclusion and personalisation n rather than clichéd rose petals etals sprinkled on the beds”. Their parents may have been content with a two-week fly-and-flop at a beach resort, but that won’t suffice for high-net-worth couples who have likely cohabited for some time and already enjoy those holidays as a matter of course.
It was that emerging desire for intrepid, bespoke itineraries that precipitated the launch of Blink. From deserts to mountaintops, pristine and isolated terrains provide the settings for elaborate temporary camps that are developed to clients’ specifications. Honeymooners have lapped up the concept, and after they’ve checked out, the same experience is never replicated for another customer – blink and you’ll miss it. A three-night retreat in the Moroccan desert, with helicopter rides and special experiences, costs about £16,000 for two.
The founder and CEO of tour operator Red Savannah, George Morgan-Grenville, has also seen honeymoons change markedly over his 27 years in the luxury-travel industry. As with so many things, it seems the inexorable rise in the use of social media has a lot to answer for. With peers having shared pictures of their own extravag extravagant honeymoons, today’s newly marr married couples feel under pres pressure to ensure theirs ap appear just as adven adventurous and amo amorous. That means a wee week in Portofino, alon alongside whoever’s bee been disgorged from the cruise ship, just won won’t cut it. Instead, say says MorganGr Grenville, “it has to be som somewhere far more rem remote, interacting with the indigenous peo people or doing som something adrenalinfuel fuelled but with a luxu luxury touch.” For
Pack to perfection for your trip Capture the moment with Fujifilm’s new XT100 digital SLR – in ‘champagne gold’ accents, of course. £619; johnlewis.com High-net-worth newlyweds might consider swapping the classic fluffy towelling spa robe for this green 100 per cent silk number designed by Olivia von
Halle: easy tiger. £750; olivia vonhalle.com BRICS has released a limited-edition gold rendition of its ‘Bellagio Spinner’ – a style towed by Kate Middleton and Amal Clooney, among others. £530; available exclusively at harrods.com previous clients, that has meant honeymoons dog-sledding to the ghost town of Pyramiden in Svalbard and cattle-mustering in the American West. If that sounds exhausting, spare a thought for those planning their honeymoons in the years to come:
“[On these trips] up goes the drone and before you know it the experience has been shared with hundreds of friends, setting the bar even higher.”
Perhaps that’s why two clients of tour operator Blue Marble Private went to exceptional effort to ensure pictures from their honeymoon to South Africa and Zimbabwe were up to scratch: they hired an award-winning