From lists of romantic destinations to stories of around-the-world surf safaris, the honeymoon is billed as a once-in-a-lifetime adventure.
The average couple spends around $4,466 on this special trip and an estimated 62% of couples foot the bill themselves. But with 72% of American couples paying for at least part of their weddings, executing this time-honored tradition is a lesson in personal finance savvy.
Some may spring for a longer trip, like this Brit and Filipina who are in the midst of a 1,000-day honeymoon. And there are others, like the American couple Amirah and Jarrell Cook who have been honeymooning around the world for over four years thanks to their digital nomad lifestyle.
But no matter how long you have, or how much money you can spend, you can make your honeymoon special. With that in mind, I reached out to five personal finance experts who are currently engaged to be married for their answer to the question, “How much should your honeymoon cost you?” Below they share their tips on building a honeymoon budget and strategies for saving for the big day.
Erin Lowry
Living in: New York
Too much for a honeymoon: Any amount that puts you in debt
Dream honeymoon destination: South Africa
If you can’t cash flow your dream honeymoon then you either need to delay taking one or do something more affordable. There are also plenty of ways to hack costs like using miles or rewards points, so putting your honeymoon strategy in place early is helpful.
My fiancé and I aren’t taking a honeymoon right after we get married because he’s a teacher and our wedding is right at the start of the school year. Instead, we’re holding off until summer and then taking a ten day to two week trip to South Africa.
We started saving for our honeymoon the day after we got engaged. We’re also planning to put 25% of any money we get as wedding gifts towards our fund. The extra time and being able to use money from our wedding will ensure we have plenty saved, because we don’t plan to scrimp on this trip. We’re generally relatively frugal travelers, but prefer to spend on more luxurious accommodations and adventures for our honeymoon.
Sharon Guttierez
Living in: Southern California
Too much for a honeymoon: Over $6,000
Dream honeymoon destination: Italy and Spain
My fiancé and I are paying for our own wedding which means there’s not a lot of room to spend on a honeymoon. We have “Honey Fund” as our wedding registry so guests can help contribute cash towards the honeymoon instead of bringing a gift.
We already live together and have most things we need, so we’d rather have guests help pay for our honeymoon than gifting us another toaster, blender or towels.
Regardless of how we’re paying for the honeymoon, we wouldn’t spend over $6,000 dollars as a couple. We love to travel and explore new places, but we also want to buy a home, so we are trying to think smart here. Ideally, we would go to a relaxing beach, but because we will be traveling at the end of October most beach cities don’t have the best weather. My fiancé has never been to Europe, so we’re hoping to swing Italy and Spain, if our budget allows. I love using Expedia for affordable plane tickets, and also have my eyes on some honeymoon packages at Costco.
Krystal Yee
Living in: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Too much for a honeymoon: $12,000
Dream honeymoon destination: China and Mongolia
The amount you spend on your honeymoon should be based on you and your partner’s shared values, but it also has to fit within your budget. If you can’t afford your dream vacation, there’s no harm in postponing the trip by a few months until you can.
My partner and I will be spending about $12,000 on a three-week trip to China and Mongolia. We tend to travel often, so while the trip is expensive, we are saving up for it by postponing it about six months after the wedding, as well as foregoing many of our smaller weekend getaways to free up room in our travel budget. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime trip, but it will be paid for with cash in the bank, because the last thing I want to do is start married life by going into debt.
Chris
Living in: Texas
Too much for a honeymoon: Over $5,000
Dream honeymoon destination: Traveling around the southeastern United States in an RV
My fiancé Becca and I are getting married in November. Our honeymoon isn’t planned out exactly, but we’ve decided to do a reverse honeymoon before getting hitched. We’ve been living apart due to job circumstances so are excited to spend some quality time together.
Since we got engaged last fall, we’ve been planning this cross country road trip. To me, spending $10,000 to go to a fancy corporate resort isn’t worth a lot because there’s no experience in that. We purchased a tear drop trailer and will be leaving Texas in May and touring through the southeastern United States before heading to Idaho. We wanted to try our hand at something different.
Desirae Odjick
Living in: Ottawa, Canada
Too much for a honeymoon: Over $2,500, or more than 50% of the cost of the wedding
Dream honeymoon destination: Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canada
The best piece of advice was hearing someone say that the honeymoon is more about the time period and less about where you go. Based on that, it was easy to focus on a trip that fit our budget and let us spend the time together.
We’re planning on spending $2,500, which is about 20% of the total cost of our wedding. It was important to carve out time to spend together, but also, we didn’t want to spend an extra $10,000 to fly somewhere right after the biggest and most expensive event we’d ever hosted.
We’ll be doing a road trip to Prince Edward County in Ontario and using what we save on flights to indulge in some of the amazing food and drinks there. Remember, your driving-distance honeymoon is someone else’s ‘we travelled around the world to get here’ honeymoon!
To help save, we’ve been paying for it in stages. We paid for our Airbnb when we booked it and now we’re saving every month to cover food, drinks and transportation while we’re there. After discussing our budget, we set up automatic monthly contributions We’re saving for our wedding at the same time, so we appreciate that this is in the hundreds, not thousands!
Desirae Odjick is a personal finance writer and the author of Half Banked, where she writes about millennial money management.
No matter where they hail from or how much they are spending, all of our personal finance experts agree: the best way to plan your dream honeymoon is to start saving early. Consider using a tool like Mint or Tripcents, a new app that automates monthly savings for a travel-based goal.
