Summer holidays are expensive. There’s the accommodation, flights, clothes, meals out, day-trips… what starts off as a very reasonable package deal can quickly spiral into a debt-inducing headache. Not many of us have a few thousand squirreled away so we pop it all on our credit cards then spend the next year paying it off.

I recently wrote a post on our summer holiday plans. We plan on using our precious weeks away to find possible wedding venues. The subject inevitably came up with my mate over a glass of wine.

HIM: “It’s neat in theory Gem but what if it takes you ten years to find somewhere you’re happy with? That’s only ten holidays. By this time Craig will have no hair left and you’ll have wrinkles in your wedding pics.”

It got me thinking.

I had nightmares about us marrying each other in mobility scooters.

Needless to say I realised we’d have to get away more often to give this search the attention it deserves. Given laws of averages states we’re bound to have at least three terrible holidays out of those ten, and at least one will some sort of Disney-esque experience for the kids (I’m not getting married there!) - it makes for a long-old search.

So we’ve decided to scatter some long weekends into the mix to keep up the momentum. The weekend breaks will be my responsibility (a perfect example of my flagrant disregard for managing my finances), and Craig will focus on the family summer holiday. Yes - it’ll mean that I’m on a spending ban until further notice, but the end result will be worth it.

Funnily enough, it turns out that we’re not only ones, and weekends-away are on the up. As people have less disposable income they are opting for lots of mini breaks rather than one big one. It actually makes sense - if you have children you can send them off to grandma’s and get away with hand luggage only. Not only this but there are some great deals around meaning you can splash out on something special without having to eat into next month’s paycheck.

Naturally we don’t want to spend too long on planes, so have our hearts set on exploring Europe. We’ve created a list of our top 10 destinations and promised ourselves we’d squeeze in at least 3 trips away every year. We’ll take Dexter away to some of them, others we’ll save for mummy-and-daddy time.

So our first destination this year will be Nice in France. Looking here, there are some incredible deals to kick-start the adventure!

Nice has to be my favourite city in France. It brings back memories of my childhood. I remember exploring the Vieux Nice with my mum & dad, looking at the ancient pastel-coloured buildings, colourful markets, and baroque churches on rue Droite. I’m not sure I could convince Craig to marry me in a church (he has a phobia of religion) but this is exactly the sort of romantic idyll that gets me excited! If not, maybe we could pick a pretty châteaux a short drive from the Promenade des Anglais - once the formal bit’s over we can take the wedding party onto the beach-front and drink champagne by the water.

I’ve set up a Pinterest board if you’d like to take a better look as how beautiful this place is. As Craig has never been, it’ll be nice to show him some of my childhood holiday spots (and vice versa) and explore them with our very own little munchkin!

From a practical point of view, there’s lots to be aware of if you’re planning a wedding abroad (In fact the checklist is long enough to mean that I might still be marrying with a few grey hairs), but I’ve already got a scrapbook full of ideas on-the-go. I must admit though, it’ll be amazing to get that location sorted so we can really start planning it out! x