Olivia's Thoughts

About Honeymoons

Like marriage itself, a honeymoon is no longer the ‘rite of passage’ it used to be, only a few decades back, when very few couples used to live together without being married. Back then, the honeymoon was often the first time a couple had spent a holiday together, never mind sharing the routine of day-to-day life – so it was a very significant time, a very romantic time, a time for getting to know each other properly.

Of course, this is sometimes still the case – but more often, couples now do live together, often for years, before deciding to marry. So is a honeymoon still so significant? Is it still a special, romantic time that they’ll look back on and remember fondly? Or is it just another holiday – perhaps one they need badly, to relax and recuperate after all the stress of planning a wedding? Most couples like to make it a particularly special holiday, and of course there are as many different ways of doing this, as there are of making a wedding day special.  Some opt for splashing out a lot of money, going somewhere further away, more extravagant than they’ve ever been before. Others have different ideas about what special means. In Tales From a Honeymoon Hotel, Gemma tells Andy:

‘I don’t particularly want five-star, or all-inclusive. I just want to go somewhere ... a bit more special.’

            ‘Florida, then?,’ Andy replied. ‘Or the Caribbean? Australia, even?’

            ‘No. It doesn’t have to be far. It just has to be ... special.’

They chose the Hotel Angelo on Korcula island in Croatia because it just looked like a romantic setting. Everyone’s idea of what constitutes romantic is, of course, different, but I suppose that’s what we all look for on a honeymoon. Romance, specialness, lovely memories, perfection. Are we expecting too much? What happens if the reality falls short of our ideals?

I suspect the brides and grooms of those previous generations were rather on their best behaviour with each other on the honeymoon – still in the first flush of love, still finding out what each other looked like in the mornings! Nowadays, most couples’ relationships have gone way past that stage before they even discussed getting married, so is it reasonable to expect this one particular holiday to be more perfect and romantic than any other? If there are problems, or arguments, on your honeymoon, can you shrug them off and accept that these things happen – or would you think, as Gemma did in the book:

No! No, we’re not going to have an argument! I’m not letting us have an argument, not on our honeymoon .....   I’m not having my romantic honeymoon ruined. I’m going to have to try to imagine that none of this has happened.

Part of Gemma’s problem is that she’s too idealistic, too hung up on the idea of perfect love. But is that such a bad thing? Read the book to find out what happens!

About Weddings

Every now and then we read in the papers that marriage is going out of fashion and that half the couples who do marry, end up divorcing anyway. And then we read that people are still falling over themselves to have their big, special romantic day. I did it, most of my friends did it or are planning to do it, and none of us ever believe there will be anything other than a Happy Ever After outcome when we walk down that aisle and make those vows, no matter what the statistics say!

Isn’t it just this – the triumph of love and hope over the cynicism and pessimism of today’s society – that makes us so happy to stand up there in front of all our friends and family and make those really very scary promises with such boldness? Call me a romantic fool, but personally I think it’s brilliant that people are still wanting to prove the cynics wrong, still eager to make their commitment to each other public and legal, and believe it’s going to last for ever!

About Hen Weekends

 Maybe you’ve found your way to this site because you’re planning your own hen weekend – or the hen weekend of your sister or best friend. If so, you’ll have already discovered that you only have to put hen weekend into Google to see that the traditional ‘girls’ night out’ has not only turned into a weekend, or in some cases a week or even longer – but it’s become big business.

Expenditure on their hen and stag weekends is one of the issues confronting Katie and Matt in Tales From A Hen Weekend. Katie takes her group from Essex to Dublin for a long weekend. Whilst that wouldn’t have been exactly cheap, it’s certainly a long way from the expensive trips planned by some brides-to-be. Week-long jaunts to Spain or the South of France don’t seem to be unusual these days, and I’ve even heard of hen or stag parties going to New York, and to the Caribbean…

Of course, every girl wants to spend time with their favourite females just before their wedding, have a few drinks and a lot of laughs but is it really necessary to bankrupt ourselves in the process – especially when most couples are also planning something special for the honeymoon, to say nothing of the expense of the wedding itself, and the ongoing cost of buying or renting a home? If the current trend continues, with hen parties going higher and higher upmarket, the inevitable risk might be that the bride won’t have anyone who can afford to go with her!

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