Alright, I’ve already blogged a few times about mini-moons and I know about (and am simultaneously terrified of) baby-moons, but I was completely unaware of an entire subset of other honeymoon labels in existence until I recently came across this Jetsetter article.  Maxi-moons, group moons, destination moons – excuse me?  How was I so out of the loop?

To get us both up to speed in terms of new wave honeymoons, here’s a helpful breakdown:

The Maxi-moon

The lengths of the Real Honeymoons on this blog range from seven to 21 days, but a maxi-moon is the type of trip when the couple takes several months off to travel the globe.  This usually entails quitting jobs (or being lucky enough to take a sabbatical), finding subletters or giving up apartments, and a lot of confidence that you and your new spouse travel well together.  Although I haven’t received any submissions from this kind of honeymooner yet, I would absolutely love to hear from one.  If you’re interested in booking this type of trip, check out this helpful blog post about buying round the world (RTW) tickets and then let me know how your trip went when you get back!

The Advance Moon

Remember Amy and Dave who went on an African safari honeymoon?  They are the first (and only) people I know who did an advance moon – that’s right, a honeymoon before the wedding – and it worked out wonderfully*.  While traditionalists will find the practice pretty strange, it completely makes sense to couples who have to schedule their wedding around school start/end-dates, job responsibilities, and other family obligations.  Just make sure that you have all of your wedding plans mostly finalized before you leave so you don’t have to stress out too much when you get back from your trip.

(*Not only did they have an amazing trip, but Amy and Dave took some absolutely incredible photos while they honeymooned in Africa.  Then they used those photos to great a personalized guestbook for their wedding.  Everyone loved it!)

The Group Moon

What’s more romantic than a honeymoon with your new spouse… and a dozen of your closest friends?  Jokes aside, I can see the appeal of this sort of trip… to a certain extent.  According to Jetsetter, a group moon is when you rent a private villa for a few weeks, stay there alone with your spouse for half of the trip, and then invite friends to join you for the rest of the time.  The idea is that you get a nice combination of private time as well as a social outlet that’s much more reliable than randomly chatting up other guests at a resort.  What the article doesn’t explain is whether you invite friends to actually be your guests or you expect your friends to chip in on the costs, and I think it’s a bit presumptuous to assume that your friends will want to buy into your honeymoon.

The Destination Moon

Wait, what?  What makes a destination moon different a regular honeymoon?  It’s apparently what you call a honeymoon that takes place near a destination wedding.  I didn’t know that sort of thing required a special name, but I guess it’s a thing.