Orcas Island Mini Honeymoon

If you are getting married and thinking about planning a later honeymoon (a couple of weeks/months after your wedding) I definitely recommend it!

My husband and I got married in the middle of August 2019 (because August is one of the few guaranteed months of sunshine in Seattle) and decided to postpone our honeymoon until my winter break in December. We did this for a couple of reasons:

1. Timing- I moved to a brand new elementary school and needed some time to unpack my boxes and set up my classroom before starting school in September. Also we went to 5 (I think?) other weddings this year and had one to go so we wanted to wait until we were done with the wedding and could just focus on us.

2. Weather- Seattle summers are beautiful so we wanted to be here to enjoy them instead of traveling during that time. We chose Thailand for our honeymoon and it’s rainy season in August so another reason to wait.

3. Convenience- Orcas Island is so close (about 3 hours to get there with ferry) and so beautiful! Also, adding a mini moon is basically like going on two honeymoons and who wouldn’t’ love that. 🙂

Here is what we did!

Day 1: We caught the morning ferry, ate some ferry chowder and drank some beers, went to a lavender field on the island (because summer 2019 I couldn’t get enough lavender), checked into our hotel at Rosario Resort and Spa and settled into our room. We went to the spa that night and had dinner nearby.

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Day 2: Drove to Moran State Park in search of a short hike. We went to Orcas Island about 8 years ago on a weekend getaway when we first started dating and wanted to try a different hike than the one we previously did. This was a mistake because we ended up on this 11+ mile hiking trail and had to turn around after about an hour in (I was not so fun to be around). We decided to drive up to the view point and explore the tower instead since we had never done this. Later we went to town and explored the shops. Went to the outdoor pool (even though it was pretty chilly) and drank a ton of margs. Then had a bomb dinner at Mijitas Mexican Restaurant.

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Day 3: It was pouring down rain so we did what anyone would do on a rainy day…go to the local museum and learn about the log cabins. Oh and more importantly we found a place to go wine tasting, Orcas Island Winery. 🙂 Later we had a “picnic” (really we just brought some bottles of wine) outside our hotel room near the beach and watched the sun go down. We had another bomb dinner at the hotel restaurant that night.

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Day 4: We decided to go on another hike (one we were prepared for with a better view) and went to Turtleback Mountain. It was beautiful! We met a sweet couple who was celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary and I told Tommy we have to come back here on our 40th. We took the afternoon ferry home, stopped at Snow Goose Produce in Mt. Vernon for the biggest ice cream cones (homemade waffle cones, over 50+ flavors, seriously just so amazing) and then heading back to Edmonds to pick up our pup.

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Again, I would definitely recommend a mini moon before taking a big honeymoon trip after a wedding! Easy to travel to, easy to plan, less time off work, something else to look forward to after the wedding, and still an amazing weekend away with the hubby to soak in the newlywed bliss.