I’ve been publishing a “Real Honeymoon” post every Monday for the past 52 weeks now, but today is an exception because it’s my ONE YEAR BLOGGING ANNIVERSARY!  Woohoo!  That’s right, the best honeymoon blog in the world is now one year old.

I first want to once again sincerely thank everyone who has contributed to the blog in any way, shape, or form throughout the past year.  Whether you’ve sent me a Real Honeymoon, shared a post with your friends on social media, or just told me that you liked the blog, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.  You guys are the best!

Since I started the blog last September, I’ve (somehow) published 114 blog posts including 50 real honeymoons from couples who visited a combined total of 40 different countries during their honeymoons.   Italy took the cake when it came to the most popular honeymoon destination, but Hawaii was a strong second with Kauai being the most popular Hawaiian island.  France and Greece tied for the third most popular honeymoon destinations.

As for the length of the honeymoons featured on the blog this year, the shortest honeymoons (not including the two mini-moons) were six nights, and the four longest honeymoons were a whopping 21 nights!  (Lucky ducks!)  The average honeymoon length, however, was 13 nights.

To gather some more information on this past year’s real honeymoons, I sent out a quick survey last week to everyone who contributed real honeymoon posts.  42 people sent in their responses, and the data that I gathered was pretty darn interesting.  Check it out:

When did most couples leave for their honeymoons?

I knew that one couple went on their honeymoon before their wedding, but I didn’t know that there was a second one!

Did most couples consult with or hire a travel agent?

People ask me about hiring travel agents all the time.  I’ve written on the topic before, but I was definitely curious to see how many other people consulted with an agent.  Looks like most couples didn’t!

Okay, so most people didn’t use a travel agent.  In that case, who did the planning?

Aw, I love that so many of these couples planned their trips together!

When planning these honeymoons, what characteristics were most important to the couples?

These results surprised me a little, especially that one of the biggest priorities for couples was “going somewhere with lots of things to do and see.”  I was expecting a lot more emphasis on relaxation and luxury, but hey, what do I know? ; )

Alright, let’s ask the question that everyone’s curious about but doesn’t want to bring up.  How much did these honeymoons cost?

Disclaimer: I asked for ballpark figures here, and I am not sure whether the responses take into account money saved by using miles or hotel points.  Next time I’ll be more specific!

Dang!  Some of those trips were really expensive!  Who paid for the majority of these honeymoons?

I’ll admit that this was the question I was most curious about.  I’ve also previously written about who pays for honeymoons, but I didn’t have a lot of real data to back me up.  I recently came across someone who nonchalantly informed a group of our friends that her future mother-in-law was planning her honeymoon because the FMIL was the one paying for it.  The group and I were pretty surprised by this but the bride-to-be thought that it was totally normal, which made me doubt my own assumptions.  Turns out, it looks like I was right that couples themselves are most likely to be the ones paying for their honeymoon.

Well, there you have it!  Thanks for indulging me with reviewing honeymoon data together – I hope you had as much fun as I did.  If not, don’t worry, we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled program tomorrow with an awesome real honeymoon from Brazil.

Here’s to another year of successful blogging!  Thanks again for all of your support : )