A Nectar-Moon

Nectar comes before honey, so Mr. Ly has gotten into the habit of calling our mini-moon our nectar-moon, which I think is perfect because our mini moon, really isn't going to be very "mini" after all.

When asked where we will be going on our honeymoon,  Mr. Ly and I don't really have an answer yet.  We do have a plan, albeit a rough one, and is really up in the air.  My standard answer is something along the lines of "We're taking a mini-moon right after the wedding, but since it's in the middle of the school year, we want to wait until summer to take a full honeymoon." This satisfies most people, but some people do inevitably follow up with the same question that I didn't answer the first time "WHERE are you going?" There is a long and short answer.

The short: We don't know.

The long:

For our mini (nectar) moon - we are relying solely on the Groupon/LivingSocial gods for this. We are looking for somewhere warm/tropical, all-inclusive, and a not too long plane ride from Philly (3-4 hours max!) that we can jet set off to Monday following our wedding.  We'll return Friday or Saturday (depending on the deal we can find), and back to work on Monday.  There have been A LOT of amazing deals lately to all-inclusive, tropical spots for super cheap. The problem is that most of them have a travel-by date that is a about a month before our wedding.  A few have extended into January, but apparently we are a bit too early for flash sales on travel for January 2013.

Here are some of our top favorites we've seen lately:

All-Inclusive 4 night stay in an ocean view suite for 2 in Cozumel - $849
3 hour flight from Philadelphia

Image via Groupon / Aura Cozumel Grand Resort

Image via Groupon / Aura Cozumel Grand Resort

All-inclusive 4 night stay for 2 in a cabana in Belize - $899
3.5 hour flight from Philadelphia

Image via Groupon / Blackbird Cay Resort

Image via Groupon / Blackbird Cay Resort

4 night stay in a villa with breakfast + 2 massages (not all-inclusive) - St. Lucia - $599
4 hour flight from Philadelphia

Image via Groupon / Cotton Bay Village

Image via Groupon / Cotton Bay Village

As you can see we want a short & sweet trip where we can sit on the beach or by the pool, drinking something tropical and fruity, enjoying our first few days as Mr. & Mrs.  Most people's response is "sounds a lot like a honeymoon."  Yes, it does, but to me, a honeymoon is a much longer trip.  We'll probably take 2 full weeks, and maybe include a bit more traveling along with the lounging. So our not-so-mini moon has really just become a nectar moon. Our trip before the THE trip.

The real honeymoon thought process is much less cohesive. We're thinking for our full honeymoon we'll travel to Europe -  Mr. Ly has always wanted to see Ireland, and I haven't been to Europe since my junior year of college and I've been dying to go back. I'd love to go to Italy, or Spain.  Somewhere Mediterranean, and foreign, with lots of history & culture to explore. We haven't made any of those plans yet.  And will be figuring that trip out probably after our wedding.

It's a bit of a risk, depending on a flash-sale site for our honeymoon.  But we've used them for many aspects of our wedding so far - we're confident that we'll find a great deal, at the perfect location!

Anyone else book a honeymoon through a flash sale?