Buy our honeymoon: Oh yes please!

Brides-and-grooms-to-be this is for you and not to be missed by any means! Have you ever considered having the most amazing memories and experiences given to you as wedding presents? Imagine having the following on your gift registry list as opposed to china, cutlery and non-stick pans:

An overnight stay on a desert island
Scuba diving
Spa treatment
Underwater dining
Sunset cruise

If this idea has stopped you in your tracks, then read on – I’ll hand over now to my lovely clients Andrew and Shelley who have started Buy our Honeymoon as a genius alternative wedding gift list like no other!

{All images below are supplied with permission by Buy our Honeymoon}

How did Buy our Honeymoon start from the very first idea to the successful business that it is now?

We first set up the site to use for our own wedding back in 2005. In the run-up to sending out our invitations, we had to consider our options for gifts — did we want to have a standard department-store list? We’d been together for ages, and already had everything we needed for our flat. What could we possibly include?

At the same time, we were planning a 3000-mile road trip through Florida, New Orleans, Tennessee and Savannah. We discovered that some travel agents let you hold a honeymoon fund with them, to help pay for the overall cost of their travel packages. But just asking for a cash donation felt a bit cold.

So we decided to break down our itinerary online and ask our guests if they’d like to buy us parts of it instead of traditional gifts — tickets to theme parks, a steamboat jazz cruise, a couple of nights in a log cabin in the Smoky Mountains. These gifts were so meaningful to us, far more than wine glasses or pillowcases ever could have been.

We were delighted that our list captured the imaginations of our guests. People actively liked getting us fun and exciting experiences rather than a set of dull old spoons that might just languish in a cupboard.

It seemed obvious that if it worked so well for us, it could work for other couples too. When some friends-of-friends got married a year or so later, we set everything up to work for them, and then developed it from there to launch as a real business. To our surprise, it took off really quickly!

Why would you encourage newlyweds to avail of the advantages of Buy our Honeymoon? Can you give three main benefits?

We’ve been married for more than a decade now, but the memories of our honeymoon stay with us — unlike everything in our kitchen! The personal joy of thinking of those who had given each gift made everything we did extra-special. We really did have the trip of a lifetime, thanks to our family and friends.

And what’s great about a honeymoon gift list is that it means your gifts stay meaningful and special, while still providing help in funding your trip. Guests want to feel that their gifts are valued, more than just a cash donation into a pot, and our service is designed to satisfy that.

What are your top tips for those who want to use Buy our Honeymoon?

Do a little bit of research into what you can do on your travels. So many couples have given us great feedback to say they really got the most out of their trip because they’d given it a little bit of thought beforehand. When it comes to putting your list together, we’ve put a Wedding List Checklist on our site. You can make your list as simple or as detailed as you want, but a little personality goes a long way.

Do you love what you do and why?

Very much so! We both feel incredibly lucky to have such autonomy in our work. Because we’ve built the site ourselves, and run the service ourselves, if someone suggests a good idea we have the power to make to happen immediately. That’s a wonderful feeling.

If you were newlyweds using Buy our Honeymoon, what would be your top 5 items or destinations be and why?

Doing this job makes us very jealous of the wonderful honeymoons our couples have! We want to go to South America and have tango lessons, climb Table Mountain in Cape Town, sail the Blue Grotto in Capri, visit Studio Ghibli in Tokyo and drink Mai Tais in Hawaii — all of it!

But really we would recommend doing what we actually did ourselves when we originally wrote the list for our road trip honeymoon in the states: add the things that matter to you. If you love it your friends and family will love it too. Sometimes the small, quirky gifts are the most memorable!

What is your dream regarding your Buy our Honeymoon?

That it continues to grow. We have a wonderful work / life balance and long it may it continue.

What is your dream regarding your personal life?

We frankly wouldn’t mind freezing time right now. Our daughters are at wonderful ages and our business is thriving. It would be great if nothing changed!