Holiday Vouchers for Honeymoon

[Springchicken]

DP and i are getting married July 06. Having lived together for 3 years already we pretty much have everything you need for a house, and having only moved in January everything is pretty up-to-date.

We cannot afford a honeymoon by any stretch of the imagination (the wedding is costing enough!) and with DD only being 2, she would come with us even if we could afford to go.

Anyway, my question being - any of you asked for holiday vouchers before? who did you use? did everything run smoothly? was it easy for the guests to purchase the vouchers? did you end up fprking out loads to actually be able to go anywhere?

Sorry about all the questions, this just seems like the perfect idea on the outside but wondering if there are hidden things i need to worry about

SC, put this on other thread but we had a Trailfinders account as our Wedding list and it was really easy for the guests to buy vouchers and for us to buy our holiday at the end of it....

if you just want a straight forward family holiday to any destiantion then i would ask for vouchers from one fo teh more mainstream travel agents such as going places or first choice and then you can see how much you get in vouchers and book the holiday of your choice.
they do good value city breaks as well, so if you didn't get quite enough for a long holiday could always have a romantic long weekend on a city break and perhaps leave your dd with grandparents so you can have a 'proper' honeymoon.

Yes, agree with Vicky, Trailfinders was great for us pre-DS, but perhaps not so for a family holiday, just wanted to reassure you that it is easy to do and that people are more than happy to buy holiday vouchers, our guests thought it was fab and I'm sure we got more as a result!

lizzylou, sorry didn't mean to offend you. trailblazers sounds great, esp kid free, bet you had a fantastic time.

just exactly as you said vouchers for going places etc probably more suitable for a fmaily. although saying that maybe springchicken fancies trekking in the himylayas with her dh and dd. i would if i was braver. but too worried about my hair straighteners having somewhere to plug in!

No offence taken, Vicky, I wasn't very clear in my post!
These days a week at FIL/MIL's caravn in North Yorks is about all we can manage!!! Glad we had our big hols before DS!

hey we had our honeymoon in a grotty hotel in whitby with our 12month old ds. the advertising said family hotel and when we got there it was above a pub and the neon light was right outside our bedroom window, couldn't go anywhere else as all fully booked as peak season. apart from that it was alovely holiday.

the big chain means it easy for people to buy the vouchers for you, springchicken, whereas if you use a little local one, people coming form out of town may not be able to get hold of them.

spring chicken - We were in exactly the same position as you when we got married and this is what we did when we got married.

Some guests objected to buying holiday gift vocuhers so we also made a small wedding list. We chose a small independant travel agent in our home town and went to speak to the manager. He co-ordinated everything for us so that guests could either give us vouchers or pay money into a secret account if they didn't want us to know how much they had given. We simply had a list of names for thank you letters.

After our wedding we went into the travel agents and he told us how much we had to spend in total.

We had enough for a lovely 11 night holiday to Spain at a Thompson family hotel with our dd who was 18 months old at the time.

The only problem doing it this way is that we got married in June but didn't take our honeymoon until September.

It was a perfect solution for us, I hope it is for you too

Oh forgot to say - we provided everyone with telephone, website and e-mail details for the travel agent so that guests from far away could contact the travel agent. Those guests purchasing vouchers gave their addresses so that the vouchers could be posted to them before the wedding.

Vicky, now I'm worried I've upset you! We have a fab time in North Yorks and it's great cos it's free and only 1 hour away, but I do hanker after a hot week away somewhere exotic..........fat chance!

This is what i was wonder too Sweetheart. We get married 1st July so would it be possible to go ASAP after the wedding or do you have to wait??
If we had a choice we would like to go the day after the wedding as it's DD's birthday on the 16th and it means we could get back in time for that.
Am i just being fussy??

I would imagine you could give a cut of date. If you used an independant travel agent I'm sure they would be able to tell you how much you had to spend so you could book something in advance - but I don't expect it would be very far in advance.

We both took a weeks holiday after the wedding anyway. We were given quite alot of cash by family members and so we had a week after the wedding where we had family days out and treated ourselves to a meal out every night. It was lovely and relaxing and also gave us a chance to sort out alot of things (like returning suits, sending out wedding cake, thank you notes etc etc etc) It was quite nice to have a week of calm and pampering after the chaous of the wedding. Then we also had the honeymoon to look forward to.

We could have gone sooner than September - probably as early as July but we chose to go after the schools had gone back so we could get more for our money

Maybe that's an option, a cut off date. TBH, it really doesn't make that much difference where we go, we would just appreciate being out of England.
Good thinking about waiting for the schools to go back - will be much cooler for DD too which then opens us to more option as we wont have to worry so much about the temperature.

Yes, we were thinking along the same lines.

We went for a Thompson family holiday so that we didn't have to lug out nappies, wipes, milk, buggy etc etc

All that is provided for you. I'm sure lots of other companies will do similar offers.

I hope you have a fantastic wedding and are able to enjoy a brilliant honeymoon!!!!

Do they really provide you with all that??? That is brilliant.

You have to pay extra for it but yes, they will arrange for it to be waiting for you in your hotel room.

I'll find the details of the palce we went to - it cost about £1200 for 11 nights for the 3 of us.

this was where we stayed

these are the details of their super family holidays

It just made everything so much easier for us. The location was fantastic - we had so much to do - even took a trip to Barcelona. Dd loved it, the staff were brilliant with her

and we pre-booked a couple of babysitting slots so we managed to have a couple of romantic evenings on our own too.

There was constant entertainment for the kids. We went half board for that price too.

Oh and, because the travel agent we used knew it was our honeymoon they arranged a bottle of champagne for us when we arrived which was lovely!!!!!

lizzylou, you didn't upset me don't worry had to log off and go and get ready for a funeral so probably have been a bit touchy this morning!

know what you mean though about the holiday somewhere hot, we noramlly go to somewhere in greece, but it just seems like too much hassle these days with the kids so this year we have optesd for weekends at my mum and dads caravan in Selsey (near portsmouth) and a fortnight in Looe cornwall.
p.s i love whitby, my husband is from York and his family still live there so we often go to whitby, scarborough, brid or filey!! and my dh's fondest memeories are of holidaying in teh caravan park at filey!

sorry to hijack springchicken.