Honeymoon on a white sandy beach of...

We booked our honeymoon!!! Imagine us, lounging by the beach, frolicking on a white sandy beach of...Kauai, HI!!!

What? But what happened to our free honeymoon? The one we won at a bridal show??? *Sigh* Cue the violins. It was not meant to be.

When I last mentioned our honeymoon, luck landed in our favor and handed us free accommodations at a resort in St. Thomas. My name was drawn from hundreds of entries at a bridal show and we were thrilled beyond belief. Perhaps I was overly excited about our prize, because I purchased a wedding gown on impulse 20 minutes later. Well, let's just say our luck did a complete 180 by the next morning. Not only did I agonize about my decision over my wedding gown, but we discovered our certificate for a free week in the Caribbean expires one week BEFORE our wedding. Noooo!!!

 First, I called Travel by Horizon, the vendor who sponsored the prize. Initially, their rep assured me that they would be able to extend the expiration date, but I would need to wait for a confirmation. So I waited. And I waited. I made several unanswered calls to their office. I was now being completely ignored. (A call back explaining the situation would have been nice. Seriously, if that's how they treat a customer inquirey, I would never consider booking a trip with them!) So I called the company who issued the certificate, but I was finally told there was nothing they could do for me. We would have to travel by the expiration date.

Moving our wedding date to fit in our honeymoon was not an option since we had already put down our non-refundable deposits for both venues. We simply would not be using the certificate for our honeymoon (I decided to give the prize to my sister, lucky girl!) So there we go, we won a free honeymoon, and then we lost it. Major bummer.

But where would we go on a meager budget? $3,000 was all we set aside for the entire honeymoon. We knew we wanted tropical. We wanted to get away from California. We weren't interested in Mexico, or a cruise. We wanted a place where we could fully immerse ourselves in our surroundings. We also wanted a place with a kitchen. Not only is it romantic to make dinner and eat a quiet meal together, it saves us so much money!

Then my FSIL who works at a travel agency offered help us find a deal. Bless her soul, she found us a great deal: 6 days 5 nights at a beachfront condominium in Kauai!

Kauai is an island both of us have yet to go and it was actually our first choice, but with crazy rates on airfare, we thought it was beyond our price range. With my FSIL's help, we booked our package through Costco, and with accommodations, airfare and rental car, we paid $2200 for the both of us! Sweet!

I am so excited for this trip! Sure, St. Thomas would have been nice (free is always nice!) but really, Hawaii is where we have our hearts set on. We have a soft spot for Hawaii- with its tropical surroundings, great food and Asian and Polynesian cultural influences, we feel right at home! Our wedding theme is a mixture of our cultural backgrounds--Filipino, Chinese and Samoan and Hawaii encompasses all of those multicultural aspects.We love Hawaii so much, the tune playing in the background of our Web site is the Hawaiian song "White Sandy Beach of Hawaii." So, hello!!! Makes perfect sense to head there for our honeymoon! Anyone out there wanna tell me where they're headed for their honeymoon? How did you go about finding yourself a great deal?

PS. Don't fall for promotional gimmicks offering you a free honeymoon if you buy their products. If it sounds too good to be true, it is...unless, of course, you really want to buy expensive knives...