Honeymoon with my Brother

by Franz Wisner

What do you do when your fiancée dumps you so close to the wedding that the flowers, food, and guests are already en-route?

"You should go ahead and have it," counseled my brother Kurt. "Your friends will be there. The wine will be there. Why let everything go to waste?"

So I did. I had a full wedding weekend with a golf tournament on Friday, a rehearsal dinner on Saturday, and even a mock wedding ceremony on Sunday. Of the 150 invited guests, 75 turned up – my entire side of the aisle. They only thing missing was the bride.

I then decided to take Kurt on my pre-paid Costa Rican honeymoon. We canceled the champagne and roses, and promised not to carry each other over any thresholds. My head was a cyclone, as you can imagine. I was depressed, angry, confused, suspicious, and even a little bit relieved.

But during the trip, a strange thing happened. I realized having my life turn upside-down might not be such a bad thing after all. Kurt and I did something we hadn't done in decades – talk, at length, about lives, frustrations, and fears. It felt meaningful and rewarding to re-bond with a brother I barely knew.

So, Kurt and I decided to continue the honeymoon. We quit our jobs, sold our homes, gave away our clothes, threw our cell phones into the trash, and continued to honeymoon for two years and 53 countries!

The result was the New York Times bestseller Honeymoon with My Brother (St. Martin's Press), a story that's been featured on The Today Show, Oprah, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, NPR, as well as in Vanity Fair, Redbook, the Los Angeles Times, and publications around the globe.

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