First, the first morning is always left blank. A wedding is a great expenditure, and a honeymoon should not begin with an alarm clock. Sleep till noon, or simply sit and drift — only once you are released from “what must be done” does the honeymoon truly begin.
Second, arrange only one surprise. Flowers strewn on the bed, a candlelit dinner, a drone spelling out words — do them all and it becomes a soap opera. We choose a single moment for a single surprise, and place it just when the other believes the day is already over. The scarcity of a surprise is its worth.
Third, the photographer follows for only half a day. A record matters, but a day chased by the lens does not belong to you. Half a day of shooting; for the rest, give your faces back to each other rather than to the camera. The finest few frames often come in the last ten minutes before wrapping — when people have relaxed.
Fourth, keep one dinner where silence is not awkward. Pack a trip with shared activities and you may forget the art of simply being two people together. Find a quiet place, do not chase the sunset, do not shoot for photographs, and eat a meal in which the mind is free to wander. A rehearsal of the ordinary days of marriage.
Fifth, on the last day write a single page. We leave a sheet of writing paper in the room: each of you sets down the one moment of the trip you most wish to remember, without reading the other’s, sealed into the same envelope, to be opened on the first anniversary. On the day you open it you will find that the remembered moments are often not the same — and that is precisely the meaning of two people travelling together.
A honeymoon need not be perfect; what it needs are a few blank spaces, and a little trace of having been taken seriously. The grand romance expires; the small things do not.