it's a love story {honeymoon}

My honeymoon was seriously the greatest. It was definitely one of my favorite trips ever, because it was the first time that I was spending every single moment of every single day with my now-husband :)

A few weeks ago, I mentioned my number one tip for Mormon brides. Now it's time to share tip #2: For at least the first night of your honeymoon, STAY LOCAL. Wedding days are looooong, especially if you didn't follow my first piece of advice, so trying to get anywhere else that night is just crazy talk. I once talked to someone who, following her reception, had to drive with her new husband the four hours to St. George. Talk about being too exhausted for anything after a day and drive like that . . .

So after our wedding dinner, we made the short drive to the Anniversary Inn in Salt Lake, though not before we were delayed . . . our friends decorated our car cute, but then filled it with balloons! We had to pop them all before we could leave . . . took forever! But we finally made it. Our room was called Tuscany, and it was beautiful and romantic. It was the perfect place for our first night together as husband and wife.

We didn't want to do anything super extravagant for our honeymoon because we knew we'd just be spending a lot of time in our room. So rather than spend a fortune on an exciting destination, we chose to road-trip to California. After checking out of the Anniversary Inn, we made the four-hour drive to St. George where we stayed in our second hotel of the trip. While we were there, I showed Russ the amazingness of Nielsen's Frozen Custard. I'm pretty sure that's the main reason for the St. George pitstop.

On Monday, we finally made it the rest of the way to Newport, California, where we stayed in an amazing condo. My parents travel a ton, so they have a lot of connections. They hooked us up and we seriously loved Marriott where we stayed. (The following pictures are all from their website.)

We spent a lot of time watching movies and eating good food. We went grocery shopping together to get some things we could cook in the kitchen in our room. We just relaxed and enjoyed every moment we had together :)

out for lunch

At our wedding dinner, Russ's uncle gave us a card with $50 in it and said to go out for a nice dinner. We couldn't imagine spending $50 on a meal for two . . . but then we went to the Cheesecake Factory and ordered drinks, an appetizer, meals, and two pieces of cheesecake . . . and spent more than the $50. It was crazy! Definitely a fun night :)

the restaurant was dark, so the flash made my already tiny eyes even tinier!

 One day, Russ and I walked to the beach that was a mile or so away from our condo :)

ow ow ;)

Newport is close to Los Angeles, so one day we went to LA. While we were there, we went to the temple.

We also went to the Santa Monica Pier.

We were trying to decide what to spend our money on--ice cream, or a ferris wheel ride. I'm a foodie, so I voted for ice cream, but Russ wanted to spend money on stuff other than food, so we went on the ferris wheel. I'm so glad we did, because he was right--we needed to DO stuff, not just eat stuff haha :)

Russ also wanted to take me to a Portuguese restaurant that he knew about, since he served his mission in Portugal.

Basically, our honeymoon was filled with a bunch of little things--nothing too extravagant. But that's what made it perfect for us . . . we loved starting our life together with this trip :)

What made your honeymoon great? :)

Linking up for Wedding Wednesday!