Jo & Mike Ray

Dear Jo and Mike,

We wanted to thank you for helping make our honeymoon the adventure of a lifetime. Because we wanted to share photos of your gifts, we decided against sending more traditional thank-you cards; instead, below is a picture gallery of what your contributions made possible!

<nerdy statement> A decade's worth of psychological research suggests that experiences make us happier than material possessions. </nerdy statement> Because we're fortunate enough to share a home with the appliances and furniture we need (IKEA furniture, but hey), we opted for a less traditional spin on wedding registries. It was our hope that a Honeyfund would offer a month's worth of incredible experiences—from dinners to sightseeing, from train tickets to hotel rooms—that we could directly attribute to the loved ones who made those experiences possible. We even carried a spreadsheet with us everywhere we went that indicated who had sponsored each activity, which helped guide us through each day.

Please enjoy the photos and captions below! If you'd like to see more pictures of our honeymoon travels, you can view the full gallery here.

Thank you again for your generosity and friendship, and for making this first chapter of our marriage possible.

Love from,

What you sponsored: Train tickets to Florence

Thanks to you, we were able to take an easy bullet train from Rome to Florence. The views were so beautiful--plenty of rolling Tuscan countryside and vineyards in every direction. Below are a few favorite photos of our time in Florence.

The Beard was in charge of all things Eurail-related. Here he is, filling out Eurail's mandatory "Travel Diary"--each day has to be filled out exactly, and when rail conductors would come by to check tickets, they'd go through each and every tiny detail. Even so, travel by train was so easy and enjoyable; we'd usually get a coffee, an orange juice, and some biscotti, then lay back and relax for a few hours.

A view across the Arno, featuring the heart of Florence and one of the city's famous bridges.

Looking out at the Tuscan countryside from the top of Boboli Gardens, which the Médici family turned into yet another family estate. Behind us lies Florence.

Looking up at Florence Cathedral, Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore. It's regarded as one of the best examples of Gothic Revival architecture in Europe, and every color of marble you see in the façade is local to Tuscany.

The inside of the cathedral's Duomo (dome), taken from a balcony very far above the rest of the church (to give you an idea of the scale of this place).

Taken from the campanile or bell tower, also associated with the cathedral. On the left is the famous Duomo, one of the biggest architectural marvels in Europe. Brunelleschi had to work with an octagonal base that then had to shift into a two-layered dome: the outer dome made out of brick (which was so heavy that the bricklayers used a unique design to help distribute the weight and to make sure the bricks didn't collapse in on themselves), and an inner dome seen by those inside the church.

Another view from the campanile. We also climbed to the top of the Duomo (on the left, which Ryan is looking at); between the two domes I just described is a very, very, very long set of stone passageways and staircases. It was one of the toughest climbs we did during our honeymoon, particularly because of the cramped space.

The inside of the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence's town hall, which was later converted to another Médici residence (primarily to hammer in the fact that this banking family was now in political power).