Skip the Beachside Cocktails? Why More Couples Are Putting Honeymoon Money Into Their Home Instead
The Pressure to Have a "Perfect" Honeymoon Is Real — But So Is a Leaky Bathroom
For most couples, the honeymoon is non-negotiable. It's the trip. The reward. The part of the wedding that's just for the two of you. But somewhere between pinning overwater bungalows in Bora Bora and staring down a kitchen that still has linoleum floors from 1987, some couples are starting to ask a genuinely uncomfortable question: What if we just... didn't go?
Or at least, what if they didn't go big?
According to a 2023 survey by The Knot, the average American couple spends around $5,000 on their honeymoon — and plenty spend significantly more. That's real money. And for newlyweds who've just dropped tens of thousands on a wedding and are staring down a fixer-upper (or even just a dated rental they're about to buy), that number starts to look a lot like a bathroom remodel, a new kitchen backsplash, or a full living room refresh.
So what happens when couples actually choose the renovation over the trip? We dug in.
The Case for Putting Down Roots Before You Fly
There's something deeply personal about where you live. Your home isn't just a backdrop — it's where you'll have your first fights and your first anniversaries, where you'll build routines and inside jokes and, eventually, maybe a family. For some couples, investing in that space first feels like the more meaningful choice.
Take Danielle and Marcus, a couple from Columbus, Ohio, who got married last spring. They'd originally budgeted $6,500 for a trip to Italy. "We both wanted to go," Danielle says. "But we'd just bought a house with a kitchen that was genuinely depressing. Like, the cabinets were a shade of brown that I don't think exists in nature anymore."
They decided to put $4,500 toward a kitchen renovation and use the remaining $2,000 for a long weekend in Charleston, South Carolina. "Honestly? We don't regret it," Marcus says. "Every morning when I make coffee in that kitchen, I feel it. Italy will still be there next year."
Their experience isn't unique. Financial planner Jenna Ortega (not that one — she's based in Austin, Texas) says she's seen a noticeable uptick in couples asking her to help them think through this exact trade-off. "It used to be rare," she says. "Now I'd say at least one in five couples I work with brings it up during pre-wedding financial planning."
What the Numbers Actually Look Like
Let's be honest: this isn't purely an emotional decision. It's a financial one too.
Ortega walks her clients through a simple framework. First, she asks them to separate the experience value of a honeymoon from the asset value of a renovation. "A honeymoon is a memory. An incredible one, hopefully. But it doesn't compound," she explains. "A well-executed renovation can increase your home's value, make the space more livable, and reduce the stress that a dysfunctional home creates — especially in that first year of marriage."
That last point matters more than people realize. Research consistently links home environment to relationship satisfaction. If you're sharing a cramped, poorly designed space with someone for the first time, it creates friction. Real friction. The kind that makes you argue about whose fault it is that there's no counter space.
Of course, the flip side is also true. Experiences — especially shared ones — build connection in ways that new tile cannot. "I always ask couples: what do you need right now?" Ortega says. "Some people genuinely need that decompression after the wedding chaos. A renovation can wait. For others, coming home to a space they love is more restorative than any beach."
The Middle Ground Most Couples Don't Consider
Here's the thing nobody talks about enough: it doesn't have to be all or nothing.
A growing number of couples are getting creative about finding a version of both. Some take a shorter, closer-to-home trip — a long weekend in Napa, a few nights in New York City — and funnel the rest into their home. Others delay the big honeymoon by six months or a year, using the time to renovate first and travel after.
That's the approach Priya and Liam from Portland, Oregon took. They did a four-day trip to Sedona right after the wedding — low-key, low-cost, genuinely romantic — and then spent the following three months redoing their master bedroom and main bathroom. "We called it our 'nesting phase,'" Priya laughs. "And then for our first anniversary, we went to Portugal. It felt like a reward for all the work we'd done."
Financially, the staged approach also has advantages. It gives couples time to settle into the home before making big renovation decisions, which often leads to smarter choices. You figure out pretty quickly that you actually need more storage in the entryway before you realize you want to knock down a wall.
How to Have This Conversation Without It Becoming a Fight
If one of you is a "let's go to Greece" person and the other is a "let's redo the bathroom" person, this conversation requires some care.
Ortega recommends starting from values, not logistics. Instead of debating line items, ask each other: What does the honeymoon represent to you? What does the home represent? Often, the answers reveal what each person actually needs — which makes compromise a lot easier to find.
A few practical tips if you're navigating this together:
- Set a shared number first. Agree on the total pool of money before deciding how to split it. Arguing about whether Italy costs too much is easier when you both know the ceiling.
- Give the trip and the home equal time in the conversation. Don't let one partner's preference dominate just because they feel more strongly about it in the moment.
- Consider what your first year actually needs. If you're moving into a space that's genuinely uncomfortable or stressful, that matters. A miserable home environment is a real tax on a new marriage.
- Remember that delayed doesn't mean cancelled. A honeymoon you take on your first anniversary can be just as meaningful — and you'll probably have more money for it.
There's No Wrong Answer Here
At the end of the day, this is one of those decisions that's deeply personal — and deeply tied to who you are as a couple. Some people need the trip. They need to leave the wedding behind, get on a plane, and decompress somewhere beautiful before they can even think about grout samples.
Others find that building something together — a home, a space, a life — is the honeymoon. The act of choosing paint colors and debating cabinet hardware and standing back to look at what you've made? That can be its own kind of romantic.
What matters most is that you make the choice together, with open eyes about what you're prioritizing and why. Because whether you're sipping cocktails in Hawaii or tiling a backsplash in your kitchen in Cleveland, you're doing the same thing: starting your life together. And that part? That's always worth it.
