cheap wedding inspiration

{Confession} I Faked It.

I don’t mean it like that. Get your minds out of the gutter. (Just kidding. Keep them there. Totally keep them there.) *Chuckles to self over implied dirty pun.*

What I’m referring to is The Honeymoon (and I’m still not talking about the wink, wink nudge, nudge bits). I’m talking about the whole shebang, the whole kit n’caboodle. All the apples. The entire enchilada. From start to finish, from the flight down to the exhausted collapse on our bed at home: I deny The Honeymoon.

Yeah, I know. I sound crazier than normal. You’re just going to have to trust me when I tell you that I’m as sane as I normally am (which is not altogether “completely” but is also not “madder than a hatter”). It’s just, what we had was not a Honeymoon.

It was a vacation with my parents.

Before we bumped the wedding, we had planned to go on vacation with my parents in March. (To REALLY clarify, my mother and I had a quick conversation about her plans to go to Florida for my father’s birthday. I mentioned James and I need a vacation. Four months later– having not talked it about it all since– she called me to tell me the vacation was all booked! SURPRISE, Mallory! My lack of mind-reading skills still shocks her, even after all these years.)

A little insight into vacationing with my mother. My mom does not know these women. They were total strangers. She just saw their tiaras and their feather boas and realized that it was divine providence that they meet, so she scurried up to their group and announced that they were all her new friends, then made them all pose for photos. (I don’t try to stop her anymore. It’s just easier to ride it out. And, anyway, as you can tell, her compass always leads her to kindred spirits. These women thought she was a riot.)

So we were going to take vacation in March, then get married in November. It was plenty of time in between, just in case I ended up terribly sunburnt and freckly. But then the wedding had to be moved, and for a myriad of reasons (mostly my lack of sanity) the weekend before vacation was the only weekend that worked. March 18 became our new anniversary and The Vacation was promoted to The Honeymoon.

Well, it’s been demoted again, and I’ll tell you why. Vacations are great– nobody cares if you sleep until noon or if you eat five meals a day (and so what if one of those meals consisted entirely of giant pieces of caramel?) or if you change out of pajamas (which I didn’t, you should know. I just changed from one set of pajamas into another set of pajamas).

Vacations with your parents are even better because they say things like, “We’ll pay for dinner,” and “Oh, you got sauce on your pajamas? It’s ok. I have a shout wipe,” and “Gee whiz I hope your sister’s feelings weren’t hurt that we went on vacation without her,” (which is always a riot). And you can ask them to snap photographs without worrying about them stealing your camera (this is especially true if your camera lives in your iPhone, and your mother can never be sure if she’s taking photographs or video).

We totally grossed the kid next to us out. It was glorious. (And yes. I really am that pale.)

Even Disney is better with your parents. Not only will your mother encourage you to eat as much candy as you want (because you’re too skinny as it is and, anyway, no daughter of hers has even backed down to a challenge that involved consuming chocolate, so wo-man up!) but your father will inevitably delight in having a new man (your husband) to drink with before noon.

Everyone ends up a little buzzed and sugar high. But that’s not the best part. The best part is that you don’t find yourself somehow a little drunk and queasy, on the Tower of Terror, wondering how you ended up on the most horrible ride ever, screaming to your new husband that no, you do not think this is fun.

Your mother does.

Note of Caution: You might still find yourself in line for some other terrible ride, like the Rock’N Rollercoaster, which not only has a section that is terrifying and pitch black, but also makes you go upside down in pitch black, which will likely lead to all sorts of soul-searching and verbal questioning of your new spouse as to why he would ever force you to do something so awful, and doesn’t he love you at all?! (He does. He just also really loves awful roller coasters.)

But. Here’s the thing. Going on vacation with your parents after the wedding and calling it a honeymoon doesn’t work because the whole point of having a honeymoon is doing what you’ve constantly wanted to do for the last three months of wedding planning: Escape your families.

There’s just something you don’t recuperate when you don’t take time by yourselves to be a newlywed couple. Now, keep in mind that we live with The Hubs’ parents, so we really seriously absolutely never get a break. We never have time to just be us, to just pal around in space that feels like it belongs to us. We didn’t do that. At all.

We still haven’t.

At first I was just going to let it go. I wasn’t going to press the issue or make a fuss because we don’t really have the time or the money to go away, and we’re just starting to feel like we’ve gotten our routine worked out. (And it felt a little dirty to take ANOTHER “honeymoon” after we ran around Disney shoving our “We’re Celebrating!” pins in everyone’s faces.)

But if there’s one thing that I can’t oversell in Post Wedding World, it is the value of having time to just spend with your husband. If that can take the shape of a bonafide Honeymoon for you– do it. If it can’t, then tuck away and unplug for a long weekend and commit to doing what you two initially set out to do as man and wife: hole up on the couch, in your pajamas, with a quart of ice cream each (so you don’t have to share) and shamelessly chain-watch the RHONJ Marathons on Bravo.

And if you’ve found yourself home from your honeymoon, thinking to yourself, “One was not enough,” well… You’re probably right; it probably wasn’t. So take two. (I plan to!)

I’ll take three if I have to, to feel like I’m spending enough quality time with that fancy new husband of mine. Time together is just one of those things that you need to be a successful unit. To be The Team. So take as much time and as many Honeymoons as it takes to get you to that place…

… And keep in mind that when I say, “We’re all in this together,” I’m referring to your groom, too. Chances are pretty good that if you feel like you need some more alone-time, he probably does, too. There will always be a million reasons not to– not to take the time or spend the money or disrupt your routines.

But keep in mind that the most important reason is the reason why you’re walking down the aisle in the first place: You love one another best of all, and you want to prioritize that bond above everything else.

Sometimes that means getting away together. Sometimes that means setting all the reasons not to aside. Sometimes that means being unreasonable.

Be unreasonable. Take the time. Consider this The Universe giving you permission. It’s worth it in the end, to your marriage and your peace of mind and your emotional stability. Home will always be there, waiting for you to get back:

I promise. (I’ve been there.)

-MMV.