Wedding Wednesday: Honeymoon

Originally, Adam and I had been dreaming of honeymooning in Banff, a resort town in the Canadian Rockies. We thought that it would be perfect for us because its more about relaxing than sightseeing, and we both tend to get pretty sunburned at the beach. Plus, we have lots of air miles from flying back and forth to school, meaning that the flight would be free. However, when we started researching hotels this past week, we ran into a few problems:

1. Hotels are really expensive in Banff. Just to stay in an okay bed & breakfast, we'd have to shell out somewhere between $150 and $175 a night.

2. We aren't old enough to rent a car. While it's possible to get around Banff by walking and using public transportation, we realized it would be a shame to go all the way there and risk missing out on some of the Rockies' beauty.

After thinking about our predicament for a while, we came up with the perfect solution. We have decided to honeymoon in New Orleans! It's not quite as exciting as Banff, since we've both been there before, but the Big Easy has several advantages for our situation:

1. Because I'm a Continental credit card holder, I recently received two $200 travel vouchers. With taxes & fees, it's about $209 to fly from Houston to New Orleans. That means our tickets would only cost $9 per person and we could save all our air miles for a future trip.

2. We can stay in a five-star hotel in the French Quarter for about $120 per night, much cheaper than staying in a Banff bed & breakfast.

3. Adam's grandfather lives about an hour from New Orleans. He has some health problems that will prevent him from coming to the wedding. This way, we can stop by and visit him instead!

Honeymoon Timing: There's a pretty good chance that Adam's summer job {he's applying for a lot of research positions} will last until August 6th. I'm going to be a bridesmaid in my close friend Arli's wedding on August 7th. So, we're planning on spending our wedding night in a swanky hotel in downtown Houston. Then we'll have a week to pack and write thank-you notes. We'll leave for our honeymoon on August 8th.

Although we won't actually reserve our flights and hotel until we figure out our summer job situation, we've got our hearts set on honeymooning in New Orleans. Banff {and all those air miles} will still be there for a future anniversary trip.

{images via flickr}