My Husband Planned a Surprise Honeymoon – Here’s What Happened

If you follow me on Instagram, you probably saw all of my honeymoon spam. (I mean, hey, it only happens once, right?!)

It was a dream of a trip and I seriously think about it every single day and how badly I am already ready to go back! And I did not plan a single thing. In fact, I had no idea where we were going!

It was Cam’s idea to surprise me, actually. We (or I guess I should say Cam) booked our honeymoon a bit later than most people would. If you didn’t know, wedding planning ran smack dab in the middle of a big life change for us – we moved to Austin! Even with it being a quick 2 and a half hour drive away from our hometown of Houston where we’d been living and working downtown for the past couple of years, it was still a huge change. Cam was slammed with organizing the move, setting up everything at our new place, and also starting a new job – which required him to spend 2 weeks in California over a 2 month period…once for an orientation and then a second for a finance conference his team was attending.

All that being said, wedding planning fell largely on my plate. I was pretty fine with that considering I am very Type A and very into planning and organizing! I had just left a career in event planning and public relations so scouting out DJ’s, finding the best caterer, and making a shot list for a photographer was just another day at the office for me.

But when it’s your wedding – and I’m sure you’ve heard from people before – it can be stressful. At the time, every decision felt huge. Should we have the DJ play during cocktail hour or pay a fee to rent speakers and just play our own playlist? Should we rent an extra table just in case that one group is able to make it? Who will sit next to Grandma? All these questions and all of the planning consumed me for the past 3 months, and at the same time, we were settling into life here in Austin figuring out the best grocery store to go to for our big Sunday shop and trying to make new friends over happy hour drinks.

Alas, when we sat down one evening to look at potential destinations and flights for our honeymoon, Cam floated the question: “What if I just planned the entire honeymoon and just told you what to pack?”

Spoiler alert: That’s exactly what ended up happening. But I was surprised (and maybe slightly offended? 😂) by how many people heard what we were doing and were SHOCKED that someone like me – someone so calculated and Type A – would allow her soon-to-be husband, a spontaneous soul who is maybe slightly prone to procrastination, to plan her honeymoon.

Well, I did. 😝I was frankly really tired of planning and just couldn’t picture myself spending extra hours on my laptop each day looking up hotels and restaurants and water taxi cruises. And Cameron is SO good at travel planning. He’s a logistics guy; he always finds the best flights, the hotels that are in the perfect neighborhood, and he does so without spending a fortune, so I wholeheartedly trusted him!

Cam has also been to Europe more than I have! The reason why we went to Ireland last fall (where we got engaged!) was primarily so that Cam could show me around his old stomping grounds. He studied abroad in Dublin in the summer of 2015 for a month, and then did a quick tour of London, Paris, and Barcelona. After that special Ireland trip for both of us, we knew we wanted to go back to Europe: the slower pace, the celebration around food and good times, the sights….we just love it. What’s not to love?!

So we agreed. Cam spent the next few weeks on his laptop a lot in the evenings trying to figure everything out, and I was plenty busy with paying off and finalizing last minute contracts, crafting DIYs, and perfecting the seating chart.

The morning after our wedding, we woke up around 5 AM – Cam’s toes numb from standing around all day in his fancy dress shoes and my entire body sore from dancing to literally every song the DJ played that night. We had gathered all our stuff in our suitcases the night before, and left anything that wasn’t going to Europe in overnight bags that we had dropped off with my mom the night before. (We were in the same hotel.)

We caught an Uber to the airport, and I was CONVINCED I was about to sit on a long, international flight. I was exhausted and delirious, but I was going to be a good sport about it, because at the height of everything, I was just so excited to be off on our honeymoon.

How Cam did it each time we arrived at the airport was he would have me stand off in the corner with our luggage and face away from the check-in counters, so that I didn’t accidentally see what airline he was checking into in case that would give it away. Then he would walk over to me with our concealed boarding passes, pull out his phone to record my reaction, press play, and hand me my boarding pass to see the surprise location. (You can watch all of those videos on the honeymoon highlight on my Instagram!)

When he handed me the first boarding pass and I saw “Logan International Airport” I was flooded with all the emotions.

BOSTON!!!!! My favorite city in the U.S. And – OMG WE DON’T HAVE TO GO ON A LONG FLIGHT RIGHT NOW YAY YAY YAY.

A little background:

A. I hate flying. I try not to say hate, but I just have bad flight anxiety. I would 100% rather drive to my destination, even if it’s 10 hours away.

B. Boston is so special to me. Cam and I went in Spring of 2018 right after I entered treatment for my eating disorder. I was really sick, and my family and doctors were pretty worried about me going on the trip, but I think it ended up saving me in a lot of ways. Getting to travel with my partner and getting to be exposed to tons of good food and fun experiences just made me want to get healthy to have more of those experiences. It was an eye opening trip! And Boston is just such a cute place for food and ambiance and history and frolicking about outdoors.

Surprise #2 was that we were staying at the same apartment we did last time we were there! Last year, we AirBnb’d a room out of the sweetest couple’s apartment that is nestled between MIT and Harvard in Cambridge. It’s such a great location because it’s right by so many great, local spots and it’s a 4 minute walk from the T, so we can always ride into other spots in Boston and Cambridge.

We spent the rest of that day (having landed in the morning) and the next day visiting all of our old spots. Namely:

Dig Inn (a chain, but one we don’t have in ATX or Houston)

Flour Bakery

1369 Coffee House

Follain (best natural skin care shop!)

It was so nice to be back in Boston. We had the best fall weather that wasn’t too chilly, and we walked, ate, and laughed a ton. The perfect way to ease into our honeymoon!

There’s just something about going back to a place that means a lot to you. I feel this way about Fayetteville, Arkansas, too, since Cam and I both went to school there for a couple of years. You have those places where you would just get the most perfect, comforting meal. Those cozy spots or beautiful picturesque locations where you just want to sit and be still and marvel for a while. Boston will always have such a special place in my heart, and to go back as husband and wife after everything that we’d faced in the past year or so felt like such an accomplishment. It was ceremonious of sorts, and Cam could not have surprised me better.

We said goodbye to our favorite city around 5 PM that second day and headed to the airport and I got to learn surprise location #2.

This post is already super long, so I will post Part 2 with the next two destinations later this week! Keep checking the blog and/or my Instagram to stay up to date on when it’s up!

Thanks for following along with our honeymoon trip and our little life 🙂

X,

Cristina