In the midst of wedding planning and the general excitement of being engaged, it can be easy to put off planning your honeymoon. However, you would be sadly mistaken if you allowed your honeymoon to be an afterthought. Your wedding day will be here and gone before you know it, but your honeymoon will linger on in your memories for years to come. That’s why it is important to put some serious thought into where you go, where you stay, and what kind of experience you want to have. You should plan your honeymoon together to ensure that both of you get what you want out of it.
When you sit down together to plan things out, it’s important to consider what each of you hopes to experience during your honeymoon. Are you both laid back types who just want to unwind and relax? Are you intrepid travelers looking to experience unfamiliar foreign lands? Maybe you’re both outdoorsy types looking to get far away from civilization. No matter what your preferences are, it’s important that you settle on a place that you’ll both enjoy, because that will get your entire honeymoon experience off to a great start. If one of you is adventurous and the other is laidback, stay at a beach and take turns surfing and chilling out at the hotel spa. Just make sure that there’s a little something for everyone.
In addition to choosing a location that’s suited to both of your vacation personalities, you’re also going to want to avoid vacation drama. If neither of you is a very experienced traveler, it’s probably a better idea to avoid international travel. If you do travel internationally, consider going somewhere where people speak the same language as you. That way, if you hit a bump in the road (you lose your passport, your hotel reservation is wrong, etc.), you’ll be able to solve any travel problems quickly. You don’t want to spend all of your time dealing with problems—you want to be enjoying each other!
Once you know where you’re staying, go ahead and book your flight and reserve your hotel. Even if you’re the kind of person who is normally content to stay at a hostel or motel, finding a nice hotel is the key to having a great honeymoon. Much as you’ll be out and about enjoying your destination, your honeymoon is all about heating things up between the sheets. You and your mate want the kind of hotel room that you’ll be comfortable spending all day and all night in, if you so please. Even if you never splurge on a hotel room again, this is the one time you should. You may also want to make sure that your hotel is located as close as possible to the location of the daytime activities you’ve planned. That means choosing beachfront as opposed to in-town if you want to spend all day in the ocean, or finding a hotel with its own golf course or tennis courts if you both want to be sporty. That means you can spend more time either having fun out and about or enjoying yourselves in bed, and less time getting from place to place. Some couples even go so far as to choose all inclusive resorts, so you never have to leave your hotel area at all.
Finally, have a plan to make the first night of your honeymoon special. Wear new lingerie, order up a bottle of champagne, and just enjoy yourselves! Make sure you’ve packed appropriate birth control measures, personal lubricant, etc., so you’ll be worry- and interruption-free when it’s time to get down to business. Most important of all, don’t forget to hang that do-not-disturb sign up on your door. Use your honeymoon to connect sexually and relax together, and you’ll have an unforgettable start to your new marriage.
The office holiday party season is upon us, so there’s no better time to think about what happens when your romantic partner has to meet your business partners for the first time. We like to think that our business and personal lives are two completely separate animals, but that’s not entirely true. Many companies hold holiday parties or company picnics that require the presence of your significant other. Sometimes there are even more intimate events that call for bringing your mate along, like a dinner party at your coworker’s home. Once your office mates have met your S.O. a few times, it won’t seem like such a big deal. The first time you bring him or her along, though, it can be pretty stressful. If your boyfriend, girlfriend or spouse makes a bad impression on your coworkers, that can reflect rather poorly upon you. That’s why it’s a good idea to sit down a few days before the impending event and talk things through with your significant other.
The first thing you should discuss is your company’s culture. Every company has an attitude and atmosphere all its own, and the way your coworkers behave at an office party may vary wildly from the way your mate’s coworkers act. If your partner is used to wild, drunken parties with his fellow staffers, he may make more than a few faux pas at your job’s much stodgier event. Of course, even if your office events are typically very Bacchanalian, you and your mate should both make an effort to avoid total drunkenness. Being in control of you behavior will keep you both from doing or saying anything embarrassing. The last thing you want is for your spouse to get hammered and then let slip that terrible nickname you have for your domineering boss.
During your talk, you should cover everything, from the amount of food and drink that’s typically consumed at your office’s parties to the dress code. If there will only be some small munchies and a lot of alcohol, your S.O. might want to eat something more substantial beforehand. That will help prevent him or her from getting too tipsy. If the party is a dressy affair, and your mate will be coming from casual day at their office, make sure they know to change into something more appropriate before they get there. You can’t use your party as an excuse to get your guy to finally shave off that beard you secretly hate. However, you should feel free to request that he trims it neatly, particularly if you work in a more buttoned up environment. Guys in a similar situation should feel free to ask that their girlfriends dress a little more conservatively and perhaps forgo their neon green nail polish on party day. You should also go over any quirks that your coworkers or boss have. If your boss is a lifelong conservative, you should advise your liberal girlfriend to keep politics out of her conversation with him. If one of your coworkers is particularly shy or antisocial, warn your boyfriend so he’s not caught off guard when interacting with her.
While discussing dress code, typical party behavior and more, give your S.O. lots of reassurance. Make sure that your partner knows you’re not trying to stifle their individuality, and that you’re not embarrassed by them. You should also be sure to point out what a favor they’re doing for you. Tell them how much it means to you that they’re working with you to make such a good impression. When it’s your turn to be in their shoes, make a big effort to cooperate with their wishes. You care about each other, so you care about each other’s success at work, as well. If your partner realizes how much you appreciate them for this, they’ll be bound to cooperate. Once they put on their party shoes and their best behavior, you’ll both be certain to make a great impression.
Everyone wants the best for themselves. Whether you’re looking for a new home, a new a job, or a new significant other, you want to find the best option out there and hold on to it for as long as you can. When it comes to things like a home or job, we’re often willing to accept a few flaws, as long as we get the majority of what we want. With significant others, however, many people feel they can’t settle for anything less than perfect. The problem with that is that human beings can never be one hundred percent perfect. If you’ve been rejecting potential mate after potential mate, you might very well be falling prey to unrealistic expectations. You need to take the time to consider whether or not your standards are too high.
There are a few strong indicators that your standards may be unreasonable. If you’re generally upset that you don’t have a significant other, yet you repeatedly overlook potential partners because none of them seem good enough for you, your overly high expectations could be the problem. If you regularly break up with boyfriends or girlfriends early on in your relationship because they just don’t seem to hack it, that’s also an indicator that your standards may be out of whack. If either or both of these scenarios sound like you, it’s time to ask yourself some hard questions.
Think back and ask yourself why you’ve rejected or broken up with the last few people who’ve shown interest in you. Were the reasons legitimate? If they cheated on you, treated you poorly, or you had zero sexual chemistry, that’s normal. If they were a generally great person, and you turned them down because you didn’t like their hair cut or the way they dressed, your standards are in need of an adjustment. You have to accept that life isn’t like a romance movie. A perfect and flawless man or woman isn’t just going to waltz into your life, because no one is perfect or flawless. That doesn’t mean you have to go out on a date with the first person that shows interest. It just means that you have to pick and choose what areas and traits are more important to you than others.
So what is important to you? What can’t you live without in a partner? You should be able to say that you’re willing to accept someone who’s not as tall or thin as you’d prefer as long as they’re funny, intelligent, and have good physical chemistry with you. Maybe you’ve always held out for someone who’s really wealthy or has a high powered career, but now you can see that you might be happier with that teacher who’s got a great smile and a rapier wit. You should also remember that some things that seem important to you right now won’t seem all that important fifteen or twenty years from now. Looks fade, and even the most striving careerist can get laid off from work unexpectedly. In your search to find someone who can make you happy in the long term, the important traits to consider are those that will get you through the bad times. Hold out for the things that will matter even when you’re old and gray, poor or sick, etc.
If you can learn to let go of the things that don’t matter as much in the long run, you may surprise yourself. Suddenly that person who seemed pretty great except for one or two small flaws actually just is pretty great. The funny thing about love is that the longer you’re with someone, the more their good traits seem to override their less desirable ones. You may look back in a year or two and laugh about the fact that you ever even considered letting someone’s slightly oversized ears or love of all things Star Trek come between you and true love.
