Lisa & Ed Youssef

Dear Lisa and Ed,

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: A private tour of Florence

If Rome is known for its churches, Milan for its banks, and Venice for its canals, Florence would be best known for its art. The Accademia and Uffizi galleries, both located in Florence, are the metaphorical Louvres of Italy; their selections of Michelangelo, Donatello, Da Vinci, and works by other masters are among the best in the world.

In 2014, Ryan and I "did" the Louvre together: We walked in, found the wing with the Mona Lisa, took photos from the back of a claustrophobically crowded room of a block of canvas much smaller than you'd expect, given its name and reputation. After about a dozen photos each, we nodded to each other, left that wing of the Louvre, took one selfie with a painting of a particularly sassy-looking Jesus, and ended up at the Apple Store beneath the museum because free WiFi.

That was us "doing" the Louvre.

Ryan is much more of a museum-goer than I am.* I'm perfectly content walking through an art museum at a pace only slightly slower than a typical stroll through the street (this pace speeds up in modern art museums, which I struggle with), but Ryan could stand and read each and every dedicated plaque, description, and brochure available if given the time.

* Exhibit A: Our first two dates were at an art and a science museum, respectively. His choice, not mine.

So we decided to meet in the middle for our dedicated "Accademia + Uffizi" day and, thanks to you, reserved two three-hour personal tours through the museums. Although we met Joanna—who has lived in Florence for 16 years and whose background centers around Italian art—outside the Accademia Gallery long before it opened, lines were already snaking their way down both ends of the street. Joanna got us to the front of every line, led us from 14th century icons to a long train of unfinished sculptures by Michelangelo, explained the David's every awe-inspiring detail, and then led us through the streets of central Florence. We saw Orsanmichele, a 1337 grain market that slowly transformed into a place of worship over the years (while still maintaining its dedication to grain storage and retrieval). We saw the Basilica di Santa Trinita, learned about centuries of Medici scheming and drama, and ended by a wall of the Uffizi gallery that was raked with snaking cracks, damaged bricks, and missing plaster. A single olive tree was planted at the foot of the wall as a symbol of peace and resilience after the Mafia set off a car bomb on that exact same day, 24 years ago. It was the Mafia's attempt to damage the Italian state's successful tourist economy, particularly after Italy made a strong statement against the Mafia only weeks before.

We then set off for the Uffizi, where we met our tour guide Sashia. She spent the afternoon taking us through galleries of Michelangelo and Da Vinci, of ancient Roman statues and newer bronze sculptures, of medieval frescoes and mannerist interpretations of the (already dead) renaissance. I finally understand why Botticelli's Primavera and Birth of Venus are such famous works of art, and we were lucky to see a newly restored work by Da Vinci depicting the Adoration. The Uffizi spent the past six years carefully removing centuries of soot and grime from his unfinished painting, revealing new colors, figures, and interpretations that no one had been able to distinguish before. It wasn't unveiled to the public until this past March, and is now one of the main attractions in the gallery.

Goofing off while waiting for our first tour guide outside the Academia. The lines were already so long.

The first known upright piano, wallpapered to match the original room where it was placed.

The Rape of the Sabines.

One of a series of partially finished Michelangelo sculptures. It was so neat seeing how Michelangelo worked his way through each block of marble; here, it looks as if the man is slowly emerging from the rock.

Michelangelo's famous David.

The David is made all the more impressive by the fact that the marble is faulty, and should have been almost impossible to work with without breaking.

A room showcasing the plaster versions of statues that students create first before working on a final marble masterpiece. The plaster copy serves as a model, to keep the second version to scale.

The original doors of the Florence Baptistery (the doors now standing outside, open to the elements, are a replica). Florence sponsored a competition for who would create these bronze doors (semifinalists included Lorenzo Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi, and Donatello); when Ghiberti won, Brunelleschi went on to construct the Duomo of Florence Cathedral, still regarded as one of the greatest architectural wonders of Europe.

Florence Cathedral, the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore

This chapel belongs to one of the oldest charitable institutions in Florence (est. 1441), which has always served as the Robin Hood of the city; the wealthy (or at least, those who could afford to do so) donated money anonymously into slots in the marble outside the chapel, and would indicate how they wanted their money to be used (for a certain family, for enemies of the Médici [who would financially ruin them], etc.). To this day, donations still go directly to the poor.

An altar dedicated to the Madonna, which was the point of prayer during major plagues (e.g., the Black Death) in Florence. It's located inside what was once a grain market.

The Mercato Nuovo.

This mercato is now home to vendors, primarily of leather and cashmere.

On the left, you see a replica of Michelangelo's David. This is where the David used to stand before a woman threw a large piece of furniture out the window the Palazzo Vecchio behind him and broke off his arm. He was then moved to the Accademia for safe-keeping.

Ponte Vecchio, Florence's most famous bridge and the only bridge to survive bombing during WWII.

A mural in a family's privately owned chapel in Basilica di Santa Trinita.

Interestingly, this mural was found beneath the previous one (through X-ray scanning when they were surveying the chapels for water damage after a bad flood). They were able to extricate most of the underlying mural.

The Uffizi is built on top of an 11th-century complex (possibly a mansion?), which means these stairs to the bathrooms hover just above the original floors.

One of the main hallways of the Uffizi.

The Birth of Venus.

Primavera.

This was one of the lounging chambers for men of the Médici family. (The Uffizi houses much of the Médici collection, which was ordered in Anna Maria Luisa's will to never leave Florence after her death.)

Looking down the Arno from the Uffizi toward Ponte Vecchio.

Michelangelo's Madonna with child.

The newly restored, and never completed, "Adoration" by Da Vinci.