The Honeymoon Shortlist Nobody Is Rushing Me On

Here is the thing that nobody tells you about planning a destination wedding in the Riviera Maya for ninety guests: every single vendor, every planner call, every deposit deadline comes with a sense of urgency that could give you a very real susto. Renata sends me a calendar reminder and I feel it in my chest. My madrina texts me at 11 p.m. about centerpiece options like the florals are going to sell out overnight. ¡Ay, la presión! But the honeymoon? Cariño, the honeymoon is the one corner of this whole production where nobody — not Renata, not my mom, not even Mateo — is standing over my shoulder with a deposit invoice and a countdown clock. And I have decided, very deliberately, to enjoy that while it lasts.

The shortlist has been sitting at three destinations for a while now, and de verdad, I am not sorry about it. Every other planning decision feels like it has an expiration date stamped on the bottom. The honeymoon feels different — like the one thing that belongs entirely to us, not to a venue contract or a catering minimum or the seating chart that currently has four unresolved "plus-one" situations. Mateo, who is the calmest person I have ever watched receive a vendor quote without flinching, actually agrees with me on this. He said — and I quote — "Sofia, el viaje de luna de miel is the one thing we should pick last, when we actually know what we need after all of this." He is, as usual, annoyingly right.

So this post is my love letter to the shortlist. Not a decision, not an announcement, not a big reveal — just me thinking out loud about why keeping three options open is, right now, the most luxurious thing about planning this whole boda. Welcome to the one desk where I am completely, unapologetically unbothered.

Why the Honeymoon Is the Last Thing I'm Willing to Rush

Let me give you some context, amiga, because the contrast is kind of everything. As of right now, I have sent or received 63 emails about the wedding weekend logistics alone — booking a wedding weekend for ninety guests is genuinely its own full-time job, and I say that as someone who already has a full-time job. I have a spreadsheet just for deposit due dates. I have a separate spreadsheet for the deposit spreadsheet's footnotes. ¡Increíble! The idea that I would also be rushing to lock in a honeymoon itinerary in the middle of all of that feels, honestly, un poco absurd.

The other thing — and this is the part that surprised me — is that the honeymoon is the first wedding decision where Mateo and I are genuinely deciding together, with no external pressure shaping the conversation. The venue shortlist had Renata's professional opinion woven through every tour. The florals had the Mexico City studio's availability window. The Oaxaca letterpress studio had a six-month lead time that basically made the decision for us. But the honeymoon? Nobody is selling us a package, nobody has a waitlist, and nobody's madrina has opinions about it yet. (That last part may change. I am watching her closely.) This is just us, two people who have both traveled a lot, trying to figure out what "rest" and "celebración" actually look like after the most logistically complicated week of our lives.

There's also a practical reason I've written about before — the gap between a destination wedding guest experience and an actual honeymoon is real and worth taking seriously. If you've read my thoughts on why a guest trip and a honeymoon are genuinely not the same thing, you already know where I land on this: the wedding week in Tulum is going to be beautiful and exhausting and full of people we love. The honeymoon needs to be the opposite of that — smaller, quieter, completely ours. That clarity is actually what's keeping the shortlist open. I won't pick until I'm sure the destination delivers on that specific feeling, and de verdad, no amount of urgency from the outside world is going to change that calculus.

The Three Destinations Still on the Table — and What's Holding Each One

I am not naming the three destinations publicly yet — same rule as the venue shortlist, same deliberate open thread — but I can tell you what the conversation actually sounds like between me and Mateo, because la verdad, it is more interesting than a listicle of "top honeymoon spots." Each of the three places on the list has something that makes it feel right and one thing that keeps it from being the obvious answer. That tension is exactly why the shortlist hasn't collapsed to one. If you want the backstory on how we got here, the earlier post about the destinations Mateo vetoed first explains a lot — there were four options before we got to three, and the one he cut first was the one I was most attached to, which was a whole moment.

What I can tell you is that all three share a few non-negotiables we set early: no more than one connection (Mateo has a rule about this — él dice que "starting a honeymoon with a four-hour layover is a bad omen," and I respect it), at least one property on the shortlist that has fewer than forty rooms, and somewhere that doesn't feel like an extension of the work we both do. I cover hotels for luxesofia. Mateo designs them. The last thing either of us needs is a honeymoon where we're both mentally critiquing the lobby furniture. ¡Qué caro sería ese error! One of the three destinations scores perfectly on all of these. The other two each fail one. That's the whole standoff.

The budget side of it is also part of why I'm not rushing. I've been very honest on this site about the deposit timeline hitting harder than expected — if you haven't seen the full breakdown of what deposits actually cost, it's worth a read before you build any travel budget. The honeymoon is a real line item and I want to know what's left after fall 2027's final invoices before I commit to a number. That's not stress, amiga — that's just math. Mateo calls it "sensato," and I call it "the reason I have six spreadsheets."

What "No Rush" Actually Looks Like in Practice — and When I'll Finally Close the List

The no-rush approach has a shape to it, even if it doesn't have a deadline. What it looks like right now: Mateo and I have one standing conversation about the honeymoon per month — not a planning session, just a check-in. We each add one thing to a shared note. Sometimes it's a hotel name, sometimes it's a feeling ("I want to wake up without an itinerary for at least three days"), sometimes it's Mateo sending me a photo of a coastline at midnight with zero context. ¡Qué romántico, este hombre! It's the least structured part of this whole process and honestly it's my favorite part of the week it lands in.

The other thing I've given myself permission to do — and this felt radical when I first did it — is to not have an opinion ready every time someone asks. People ask about the honeymoon constantly, more than they ask about the dress or the flowers. There's something about it that feels like the most romantic data point, the one everyone wants to know. And for a while I felt this pull to have a polished answer, something grid-ready and confident. That's my instinct, cariño — the curated response. But Mateo's total lack of urgency about being watched has rubbed off on me in the best way. Now when someone asks, I just say "todavía estamos decidiendo" and let it breathe. It feels, de verdad, like the most honest thing I say about this wedding.

As for when I'll actually close the list: my internal rule is that the honeymoon destination gets decided no earlier than three months after the venue is locked — because until I know exactly what the wedding week will feel like on the ground, I don't fully know what I need the week after to be. That's not procrastination. That's sequencing. Renata, to her credit, completely agrees. She told me once that the brides who burn out fastest are the ones who try to plan everything at the same emotional pitch, at the same time — and I have taken that to heart. The honeymoon is the reward, the cosa más dulce at the end of all of this. Vale la pena waiting until I can choose it with my whole chest.

Bride in progress, amor en construcción.
— Sofía

Bride in progress, amor en construcción.
— Sofía