Honeymoon

The origins of the honeymoon began in European wedding traditions of the upper class in the nineteenth century, affording the couple the luxury of a bridal tour or wedding trip that often lasted several weeks or months (Gillis 1985). As the middle class grew in industrializing nations, they began to emulate the bridal tour. Middle-class couples could not afford the scale and duration of the bridal tour as practiced by affluent brides and grooms. Thus, the honeymoon trip that lasted a few days to a week provided the semblance of a bridal tour. With the advent of the automobile and train, and later the airplane, couples were able to increases the distance of their honeymoon trips and seek out exotic and popularized locations such as Niagara Falls. By the mid-twentieth century international sites such as Jamaica, Fiji, and similar tropical locations had become common honeymoon destinations. Resorts that cater exclusively to honeymooning couples were mass-marketed in the later part of the twentieth century.