We have written earlier in the year about early-year honeymoons — the small, private weeks that follow a quiet winter wedding. This note is for the other kind: the honeymoon taken at the end of the year, by couples who married privately in the late months and who wish to begin the new year together somewhere unobserved.
The honeymoon for the quiet kind is a specific design brief. No large terraces, no ceremonial dinners, no thematic romance. A single room with a view, held for a single party. A menu that has been looked at, but not discussed in advance. A planner who will not phone unless asked.
Where we send them
- A ryokan above Kyoto in the first snow — a private onsen, a meal served in the room, shoji screens and a small table.
- The Norwegian coast in mid-December — a cabin reached by boat, a stove in the corner, a sea that does not move.
- A small villa above the Cilento coast of Italy, empty in December, with a single fireplace and a cook from the village.
- A private suite at a hotel in a small Alpine town — high enough to have snow, small enough to be walked across in a morning.
- A stay in the far west of Scotland, in a house with a single room made up for the arriving party and nothing else on the itinerary.
How we plan them
Lightly. The first rule of a quiet honeymoon is not to over-program. A cook for dinner, always. A driver for a half-day outing if wanted. The rest we leave open — suggestions on the bedside table, or none at all, as the couple prefers. We brief the hotel staff on the particular kind of discretion the week requires, and step back.
What these couples know, and what we have learned by arranging many such weeks, is that a honeymoon does not have to be a performance. It can simply be a week of the kind that a long life together should have more of — quiet, shared, and designed so that the two people in it are free to remember it exactly as they wish.
We think of them, privately, as some of the most successful weeks we arrange.
