What Is A Buddymoon? How Honeymoons with Your Friends Can Get Complicated

It was the stuff of honeymoon dreams. Fresh off their destination wedding in Italy, newlyweds Heena and Eric Manglani-Terranova of Somerville, Mass., were cozied up on a small boat in Capri, about to pass under the iconic Faraglioni rocks jutting up from a glittering sea.

“Legend has it that couples who kiss under the rocks will live happily ever after,” the captain told them.

So, they leaned in for a sweet, romantic moment—while the 10 friends they had invited on their honeymoon held up their phones and chanted, “Kiss, kiss!”

The couple didn’t know it then, but they were partaking in one of the biggest post-pandemic travel trends: the buddymoon, travel jargon for when newlyweds invite their friends on their post-wedding trip, replacing a romantic vacation with a big, lively celebration to start their union.

The trend has made a splash on social media, especially TikTok and Instagram; dreamy reels of the Amalfi Coast, the Caribbean, and beyond are paired with captions like, “This is your sign to invite your friends on your honeymoon.”

By all accounts, “buddymoons”—like family honeymoons—have been slowly growing in popularity for years. As far back as 2015, celebs Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux invited their friends to their Bora Bora honeymoon. But a new survey reports that approximately one in five newlyweds would consider a buddymoon today.

Carolyn Addison, Head of Product at Black Tomato, a travel agency that specializes in tailor-made trips like buddymoons, has also noticed the uptick, especially following destination weddings.

She added that post-pandemic remote work makes it possible for many people to travel frequently, resulting in the rise of more destination weddings with smaller guest lists, ripe conditions for a buddymoon.

Hotels, too, are noticing this trend via post-nuptial bookings. Jason Marcus, Co-Owner and General Manager of Hotel Lilien in the Catskills, says they’re seeing more couples booking extra rooms for friends and family to share in the festivities during engagement weekends and other previously private celebrations. Why? “The more the merrier! You only get married once—why not stretch out the celebration past the ceremony and reception?” Marcus says.

Looking back, the Manglani-Terranovas say they had an overwhelmingly positive experience, that their group of friends still say “Andiamo!” to each other today—but there were limitations, too. The big one? None of that traditional honeymoon romance.

They chalked up not getting as much romantic couple time as they wanted to “our own FOMO (fear of missing out) on the group’s adventures”—like the time they opted to go on a hike in Sorrento with everyone rather than having brunch together alone. When the group returned to the Airbnb, there was everyone, sweaty and taking turns in the shower. “Having a separate hotel just for us that was particularly nice would’ve been more special,” Eric reflects.

Nothing was ruined per se, but the group dynamic changed some things. On their boat ride, one friend got jellyfish stings that thwarted plans of the group walking around Capri. On another night, a friend traveling solo third wheeled them when they thought they’d get time to wander town hand in hand; the night before they flew out, friends of friends the couple didn’t even know had been added to their farewell dinner.

They were very cool about all of it, pointing out that being flexible on a buddymoon is key, though Heena says, “I remember thinking, ‘This could’ve been one time we had alone by ourselves.’”

Traveling with a large group also made planning the buddymoon more difficult—namely, finding accommodations, securing transportation, and making dinner reservations for 10 people (and most times those places that took big groups tended to be full of other tourists).

Eric points to their final dinner together, which was “one of the worst meals we had in Italy” all because the restaurant full of tourists was the only one that could accommodate their large party. At one point, they were served a basket with bread that already had a bite taken out of it. Yet somehow, the group laughed through the dinner.

“If it was just us on a romantic dinner, we’d probably be salty about it,” Eric says. “But being able to laugh about it with them made something that wasn’t great into a highlight of the trip.”

The issue of coordinating with other interested parties is a common theme among those who have considered the buddymoon—as wrangling that many people to come to a consensus about an itinerary before the wedding can be stressful. In July, Kate Szmurlo and Matt Childs of Denver, Colo., were planning a honeymoon to Morocco with a few of their closest friends after their wedding in Portugal. That is, until it got too overwhelming to plan with so many moving parts and parties.

The couple ended up abandoning the buddymoon plan—some friends wouldn’t commit, others couldn’t agree on budget or destination, and some wouldn’t contribute to planning, all common group trip drama. “It just got to be too much planning with everyone before the wedding,” Szmurlo says.

Chrissy and Joey O’Neill of Ventnor City, N.J., got to see what the experience is like from the other side when they decided to piggyback off another couple’s honeymoon. Since they didn’t have a honeymoon after their wedding, they saw an opportunity when their best friends Aisha and Kevin Schaffer invited them to their wedding at an all-inclusive in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.

“My husband was the best man, so we said, ‘Wow, we should have our honeymoon at the same time’ as a joke,” Chrissy says. To her surprise, they said “Let’s do it,” and their group of two became a group of four, and eventually 15.

Because they knew each other well enough, there were “no awkward moments,” Chrissy says, adding that the beach all-inclusive setting made it easy to peel off for walks or lying on the beach, without the headache of organizing big dinners or buses.

Chrissy knew they’d made the right decision when she was staring down the end of a zip line, not quite ready to jump. “My bestie was just as scared as I was to do these things, so we had each other to push through it,” Chrissy says, pointing out she never would’ve participated in such an adventurous activity on her honeymoon without friends there. Zip-lining was just the beginning. Next came snorkeling and cavern diving—the possibilities were endless, all thanks to the group.

Sowhat about the little snags along the way, the things that didn’t go as planned, and putting alone-time on the backburner? Heena looks back on many of those moments—like all 10 of her friends chanting for her to kiss her husband on a boat—with fondness.

“It was almost more special than being alone,” Heena says. “I remember being like, ‘When are we going to get to travel again with our friends in Italy?’ We can spend alone-time together any time.”