If I had to pick the most stressful element of planning this entire wedding thus far, it would have to be hands down, honeymoon planning. Those 300 hand calligraphed envelopes have nothing on the honeymoon monster. So let me tell you, booking flights this week was a huge weight off of our shoulders. Belize, here we come.

With the world as our oyster, our planning pretty much went like this for about three months:

Strategy number one: pull up Google Maps, choose a country, Google weather in that country, then look at flights on Kayak.

Strategy number two: hire a travel agent. While this certainly helped rule out a few destinations, it certainly didn’t cure my indecisiveness.

Strategy number three: go back to the always reliable Rory Gilmore pro/con list. Here was ours:

1. We are spending two weeks, so somewhere we could travel every few days, though not live out of a suitcase
2. Stay within budget, so we can travel comfortably, maybe even splurge here and there (if you know us, this will likely mean dinner where we spend more than $30 ;))
3. Beach. Has to have a beach
4. Make that a beach with activities – P gets bored quickly
5. Not spend days on planes, trains and automobiles getting there
6. No big resort accommodations. We are drawn to little local places, boutiques hotels and the like for the charm and personal feel

After this, we seemed to have narrowed things down a bit:

1. Rules out Peru. Too much hiking for this trip
2. Sadly, this is how New Zealand and that dream of Bora Bora died
3. Europe, we’ll see you someday, but too cool temperatures in November kinda kill the beach vibe
4. Most small islands, out, not enough adventure variety
5. Bali, though still SO high on the list, lost due to its 38 hour travel. Yuck
6. Hawaii came SO close, but then we did some more homework and stumbled upon BELIZE

We booked flights (and our first destination) this week and could not be more thrilled. We’re planning to spilt our trip with one part jungle, two parts islands.

The jungle is booked. First up, we’ll be heading to Caves Brach where we are staying in a freaking treehouse. Please note, I believe I’ve used the adjective ‘freaking’ every time I describe the treehouse.

Next up, we’re exploring two of the cayes, four days each. Currently, our front runners are Ambergris Caye and Caye Caulker.

We now know why everyone counts down the days to the honeymoon and we can’t wait. 94 days and counting.