Honeymoon vs Minimoon with Oniki Occassions

Do you have a decision to make about whether to do a full honeymoon or a mini moon? This is becoming a question more and more often these days. And that is exactly why we did this episode for you. I have Oniki Hardtman with me who is a destination wedding and event planner and designer. And she's going to chat with me about honeymoons versus mini moons. And what exactly the differences between the two. Oniki is the founder and creative director of Oh Niki Occasions and Petite Palm Beach Weddings. She specializes in destination wedding planning, and elegant event design from head to toe start to finish as a graduate of New York City's Fashion Institute of Technology. Oniki has a 20 year career background in the fashion industry, where she was fortunate to travel the globe as a designer for several notable corporations with the desire to create more on an intimate level. She founded Oh Niki occasions to lend her keen eye for design to multicultural clientele across the globe. Whether it's a destination wedding, or simply destination inspired, Oniki and her team are passport ready and excited to create an unforgettable experience for you. While gorgeous weddings in South Florida and the Caribbean are what she's known for Oh Niki Occasions has created honeymoon and group travel experiences from Africa to Italy, Bermuda, to Costa Rica, and many islands in between. You may not even have been thinking of taking a mini moon before this episode, we're gonna give you all the reasons why you may actually want to.

Oniki is a wedding planner here in South Florida. I love planning destination weddings, because as you well know, it just gives us the opportunity to have like a multi day celebration with all your friends and family. But I love the travel aspect of that, like, aside from South Florida, I love taking groups away and building an entire experience out of it. So that's why for me, the travel portion is really, really big. I love helping clients plan their honeymoons, wherever they may be or group destination travel and things like that as well. To help describe it, honeymoons as we know them are typically, you know, immediately after the wedding or shortly thereafter, they're usually longer in length. People make a considerable investment in them. They're usually at least five nights away seven nights, 10 days, whatever the case may be some people if you're really fortunate to have the time and the resources available to you will go away for three weeks to a month. So that's a true honeymoon. A mini moon is going to be shorter. Just as we are seeing mini and micro-weddings; we are also seeing mini-moons. It can be two/three nights away, but it might not be a big trip to your dream destination. Mini-moons are still super romantic and the opportunity to decompress after your wedding.

There are a lot of reasons that taking a full honeymoon might not be an option after the wedding. The couple has likely taken time off for the wedding already and there could be school, or work, or moving into a new home, they just can't take that time at that moment to go do that. If there are things that may prevent couples from doing a longer honeymoon, a mini-moon can be a great option to just have some special, stress free time with your new spouse. Just to relive all the joy of the wedding and recap and then look forward to your new life together.

A mini moon can kind of be a bridge, like, let's you know, and I feel like it brings you back to just being with your new spouse. So now just like everything that it was before the wedding, is now you're at an elevated sentimental time, emotional time with the person that you're now officially married to. So you know, just to be with them alone for a few days as husband getting acquainted to your new roles together.

As a destination wedding planner, we have a lot of people coming down to Florida for their wedding and they are flying down from other states or other countries. It’s important to remember just how much you need to pack for both the wedding and the honeymoon or mini-moon. Likely, couples are bringing a completely different set of suitcases depending on where their adventure will take them. It takes time on the front end to plan that, as well.  

Planning a honeymoon can be stressful and very time and resource intensive. Depending on the situation with the wedding, the couple may not have the time or resources to devote to planning another trip.

It’s also important to think about how you are going to emotionally feel. If you are headed down to Florida for a destination wedding and you have so much on your mind - are you going to want to jet off on your honeymoon to a different adventure the next day? For some people, it’s not a problem to consider these options back to back, but for others, they don’t like to be on the go the entire time and may opt for another trip at a later date.

The weather and just general seasonality needs to be considered. Where would you like your honeymoon or mini-moon to be? Skiing in Europe? Amalfi Coast in Italy? What’s the weather like in those places and is it a good time to visit. No matter where you go, you want to pay attention to peak season. It will be helpful in budgeting and planning any excursions or additional trips at your location. Is it worth it to you to travel in peak season and pay peak prices? Do you prefer it to be a little less busy? Shoulder season can be a great time to travel, because the weather is likely still good, but you aren’t traveling when the rest of the world is.

Peak season is the height of the travel season, for wherever you are looking to vacation. It’s when most people travel to that destination. For example, if you are going skiing - it would be during the winter, that’s the height of the season. If you pay attention to this, you will likely see airfare and hotel accommodations much higher during this time, because it is likely they will be at full capacity and you pay a premium for that. In shoulder season, the weather might not be perfect, but it’s likely still good. Pay attention to rainy season and hurricane season.

It is important to take the time to do your research in advance — for a honeymoon and a mini-moon.

Clients will want to consider all of the things outside of your wedding that could influence that time. Just before in just after your wedding that may impose let's say you're building a house? Well, is that part of what where they're going to be at in the construction of your house? Is that a time that you can be away? You know, for an extended length of time? Or do you really need to be there, you know, for that, like, it's okay for you to be gone for a week for your wedding. But, you know, leaving for three weeks, six weeks may not be the best timing for something like that. Or, you know, if you're in school, you know, let's say you're going to have to take your bar exam or something like that, you know, that could definitely play into that decision. Yeah, absolutely. So I think you'd need to consider life things that can influence it's,

Weddings are go-go-go-go-go once you’re in thick of it. It's exhausting. I try to let my clients know like you're going to be tired wedding weekend please, plan some downtime, you know, schedule, schedule time to do nothing. Most couples look forward to the honeymoon or mini-moon, but you don’t’ want to be completely exhausted before you even walk down the aisle.

Another insider tip for whatever you decide to do, is don’t be shy to let people know that you are on your honeymoon. I have heard so many wonderful stories of personnel giving a flight or room upgrade or guests wanting to celebrate you when they hear you are on your honeymoon. People get excited to hear about love and the joy in the celebrations.

If you're doing a destination wedding in the Caribbean, some of the resorts out there, they have their own registry websites and things like that. Oniki is a certified Sandals Resorts specialist and they do a lot of wedding / honeymoon combos. Most of the destination resorts in the Caribbean will do something of that nature. But sandals, they are well known for doing that you can do what they call a honeymoon hop, you know, you come to one of the resorts get married. And then you know, you hop over to either the next resort or hop over to a different Island and they make it a seamless transition for you. And reservation and then you just keep going from there. It helps with adding up extra vacation time to travel and if you get married in a place that you would enjoy relaxing and visiting, you can do it in both places. I just had a couple recently married on Captiva Island and spent their honeymoon on Marco Island. There are lots of options for you to honeymoon in Southwest Florida.

If you are getting married at a resort, keep in mind your guests might be staying there, too. There are often different feelings about running into people on your honeymoon like Aunt Sally or Uncle Bill. Sometimes people just want that peace and relaxation. You could also be on a similar excursion or find yourself dining at the same restaurant. For some couples, that is not a concern and for others, they would like to avoid that at all costs.  

Oniki - thank you so much. I think that we gave a lot of great insight into so for even for some people who didn't know what a mini moon was, but why they should definitely consider it and not, you know, not just leave and go right back home, and then wait for the honeymoon. You know, all that time later back. So thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk through this with me today.

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