New York City is faced with an epidemic. It seems the entire city has come down with wedding fever.

But what can we expect? It’s wedding season!

Blushing brides are around every corner with nothing but flowers, dresses and cakes on the brain. As we become wrapped up in the idea of love and unity we seem to forget about one important part of getting married: THE HONEYMOON!

Weddings are beautiful: the flowers, the bride, the ring. Of course it would be easy to forget about the not-so-glamorous after-party when the two get to spend some serious alone time getting to know one another for the first time as husband and wife. And sadly, brides become so wrapped up in all the wedding details they forget about how important it is to plan their special time to make sure their new lover gets some extra special attention.

The Knot® one of the hottest wedding magazines on newsstands today offers all the advice one could ever need when it comes to honeymoon planning. I navigated the site and the magazine and put together a list of the most important do’s and don’ts to planning the perfect honeymoon.

Do start planning early. You can start accumulating airline miles, looking into pricing and choosing a destination. It will only benefit you to plan ahead.

Don’t let one person do all the planning. This is a time for the both of you to spend together so it should be a mutual decision.

Do have a budget. And stick to it.

Don’t expect one person to take care of the entire cost. This could create some serious tension.

Do work with a travel agent. S/he can help you find great deals and options to fit your budget.

Don’t forget to find out all the means necessary to go to your travel destination. If you are leaving the country you will need a passport and you will need to allow six to twelve weeks to receive it in the mail. If you’re going somewhere really exotic, you may even need vaccinations or other forms of medical preparation so don’t let that surprise you when the time comes and it’s suddenly too late.

Do look into what activities are available at your destination. Many places offer discounts and free activities; you just need to ask around. This will allow you to do more on your honeymoon and keep within your price range.

Don’t book anything on a whim. Do research first to see if it is the right place for the two of you to go. If you are planning on spending all your time in bed you want to make sure you are in a comfortable room. If you want to be outdoors, find a place with activities.

Don’t forget your camera; unlike the wedding, there is no professional photography here. You are going to want memories of this vacation so make sure you have a camera or two and all of the accessories needed.

Do create a checklist/shopping list. Most newlyweds like to escape for a week or two and most of us are not used to packing for such a long trip. Make sure you get everything you need beforehand because once you get to your own little world you are not going to want to leave to run to the store because you forgot a razor or a toothbrush.

Don’t be afraid to get a little kinky. You’re married! You are supposed to enjoy one another’s company in many different ways. This is a time to be in your own fantasyland so make it a fantasy worth remembering. Find sexy lingerie for his eyes only. Use this time to fulfill any desires you always harbored deep in the back of your mind. Order champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries. Get crazy!

Do make sure you have limited interruptions. No need to take a computer or Blackberry. This is supposed to be your time alone with the one you love so keep all outside distractions to a minimum. A cell phone is OK, but use it for emergencies only. There is really no need to call your friends and give them a play-by-play of what you are doing.

Don’t expect everything to be perfect. There is really no such thing as a perfect…well…anything. If you run into a few snags along the way, no problem. Don’t let it spoil your time with the one you love.

Do remember: you just married the person of your dreams and you are madly in love with them. Enjoy yourself. Relax. Let it be the most amazing start to spending the rest of your life with this person.

Marriage is such a beautiful thing and there is so much that goes into planning a wedding.

Whether it is on the beach of a tropical island or the slopes of the Swiss Alps, when all is said and done, you should know how to take the time to sit back, relax, and enjoy the union you and your spouse just celebrated with each other and your loved ones.

For more tips and ideas on planning a honeymoon, visit http://www.theknot.com.

“Once upon a time, there was a princess named Marie. She had long, thick curls and beautiful brown eyes, and her clitoris was three centimeters away from her vagina. The last bit was very depressing for the princess. She could never manage an orgasm during intercourse, and she felt certain that the far-off placement of her clitoris was the reason.”

In her latest New York Times bestselling novel, Mary Roach explores such questions as “Does height affect a woman’s capacity for sexual pleasure?” and “Can a person really achieve orgasm through mental concentration alone?” Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex covers facts, myths and the weird, investigating a wide range of studies conducted around the world. I caught up with her at her book reading event at the Bodies Exhibit and solicited her for an interview. Luckily she obliged my humble requests and I was able to squeeze in a few questions during her busy book tour.

H: Your research process must have been interesting, to say the least. How long did it take? Did you hit any speed bumps along the way?
M: It took a couple of years. You know a lot of the time I was waiting for some study to get going and they wouldn’t get funding, or they’d get delayed. So the whole process got stretched out because I’m dependent on the researchers’ schedules and things tend to move very slowly in the academic world. The problem was usually that they weren’t doing something in the labs that was interesting to describe or they were already done with the project or they were only doing survey work.

H: During the course of your research, you traveled to Taiwan, Cairo and London. Did you notice any cultural differences in the way researchers approached the study of sex?
M: Certainly, Professor Shafik had to. He couldn’t publish in his own country. I didn’t notice other cultural research differences partly because I think that one of the biggest differences is just that there are just whole areas of the globe where no one will do this kind of research. Especially in any kind of conservative Islamic or Muslim nation, it would be a point for criticism. Unfortunately, Dr. Shafik died of a heart attack shortly after the book came out so he never got to see it. He funded his own work, so he’s one of a kind. I don’t know that there would be too many people like him and certainly not in Egypt. He’s a bit of the controversial figure.

H: I’m sorry to hear that; he was a real maverick. I was especially interested in his implications when he said, “In all Arab countries, I don’t know why and how, conservative people are coming up greatly. Greatly!” Similarly, you mention on separate occasion that America in the 1950s was much more conservative than America in the 1920s. In terms of sexual liberation, are societies progressing or regressing…or what?
M: I think that we took a couple steps backwards during the Bush administration because there was such a rise in support of conservative family values. Christian groups would target researchers who did sex research. They would target them for criticism or put them in the spotlight for ‘wasting funds.’ Hopefully, with the Obama administration things are back on track. In general, though, sex is a lower priority for research than, lets say, cancer or cardiac issues or mental health. It tends to be considered a lifestyle issue so it doesn’t get priority for funding as much.

H: Well maybe if sex was given more scientific priority we could more quickly expel common misconceptions. My favorite comes from the Middle Ages (and page 143 in the paperback version of Bonk) explaining male impotence: “…the common assumption was that impotent men had been cursed… made the man’s penis disappear.” Of course, some hundred years later, we know this to be untrue. If you had to guess, what which common belief of contemporary society would you predict we’d look back upon 200 hundred years from now and think “Wow, we had it all wrong, didn’t we?”
M: I’m hoping people would look back with utter
surprise and incredulity at the opinions of people who don’t accept homosexuality, who think that it is something to be punished for or ashamed of or discriminated against. I think that seems pretty backwards, so hopefully in 200 years that will be just really puzzling to that people who were persecuted or beaten up or murdered or denied the ability to legally adopt a child because of their sexual preferences. We should be there by now and we are in urban areas, but we’re not in the rest of the world, or even the rest of the country.

Is that guy you snuggled with all winter starting to look like a bed bug? Doe-eyed lovers beware: Valentine’s Day is over. As the weather gets warmer, you might feel your relationship beginning to cool off. And while some of us will be giving/getting the boot, others will look to turn their seasonal flings into long-term relationships. Of course, like everything in life, there is a wrong way to go about doing this. Instead of cementing this exciting occasion in relationship mistake history, put down that whip and cap that KY! Here are four fun and effective ways to get closer to the one you love (that don’t require a safety word).

Cook a meal. So you just learned how to boil water, and you’ve somehow managed to burn spaghetti once or twice. That’s just fine. Find a recipe within your skill set that you both agree upon and get cooking. It might not turn out the way you like. It might not even be edible. But as you work side by side, you will begin to establish a team mentality. Just remember to go Dutch on groceries. It’s easy to play your part in outdated courting rituals but you have to know where to draw the line. Yes, men should open doors and it’s always nice to see a woman in a skirt, but no one should get stuck doing all the dishes alone.

“Once upon a time, there was a princess named Marie. She had long, thick curls and beautiful brown eyes, and her clitoris was three centimeters away from her vagina. The last bit was very depressing for the princess. She could never manage an orgasm during intercourse, and she felt certain that the far-off placement of her clitoris was the reason.”

In her latest New York Times bestselling novel, Mary Roach explores such questions as “Does height affect a woman’s capacity for sexual pleasure?” and “Can a person really achieve orgasm through mental concentration alone?” Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex covers facts, myths and the weird, investigating a wide range of studies conducted around the world. I caught up with her at her book reading event at the Bodies Exhibit and solicited her for an interview. Luckily she obliged my humble requests and I was able to squeeze in a few questions during her busy book tour.

H: Your research process must have been interesting, to say the least. How long did it take? Did you hit any speed bumps along the way?
M: It took a couple of years. You know a lot of the time I was waiting for some study to get going and they wouldn’t get funding, or they’d get delayed. So the whole process got stretched out because I’m dependent on the researchers’ schedules and things tend to move very slowly in the academic world. The problem was usually that they weren’t doing something in the labs that was interesting to describe or they were already done with the project or they were only doing survey work.

H: During the course of your research, you traveled to Taiwan, Cairo and London. Did you notice any cultural differences in the way researchers approached the study of sex?
M: Certainly, Professor Shafik had to. He couldn’t publish in his own country. I didn’t notice other cultural research differences partly because I think that one of the biggest differences is just that there are just whole areas of the globe where no one will do this kind of research. Especially in any kind of conservative Islamic or Muslim nation, it would be a point for criticism. Unfortunately, Dr. Shafik died of a heart attack shortly after the book came out so he never got to see it. He funded his own work, so he’s one of a kind. I don’t know that there would be too many people like him and certainly not in Egypt. He’s a bit of the controversial figure.

H: I’m sorry to hear that; he was a real maverick. I was especially interested in his implications when he said, “In all Arab countries, I don’t know why and how, conservative people are coming up greatly. Greatly!” Similarly, you mention on separate occasion that America in the 1950s was much more conservative than America in the 1920s. In terms of sexual liberation, are societies progressing or regressing…or what?
M: I think that we took a couple steps backwards during the Bush administration because there was such a rise in support of conservative family values. Christian groups would target researchers who did sex research. They would target them for criticism or put them in the spotlight for ‘wasting funds.’ Hopefully, with the Obama administration things are back on track. In general, though, sex is a lower priority for research than, lets say, cancer or cardiac issues or mental health. It tends to be considered a lifestyle issue so it doesn’t get priority for funding as much.

H: Well maybe if sex was given more scientific priority we could more quickly expel common misconceptions. My favorite comes from the Middle Ages (and page 143 in the paperback version of Bonk) explaining male impotence: “…the common assumption was that impotent men had been cursed… made the man’s penis disappear.” Of course, some hundred years later, we know this to be untrue. If you had to guess, what which common belief of contemporary society would you predict we’d look back upon 200 hundred years from now and think “Wow, we had it all wrong, didn’t we?”
M: I’m hoping people would look back with utter
surprise and incredulity at the opinions of people who don’t accept homosexuality, who think that it is something to be punished for or ashamed of or discriminated against. I think that seems pretty backwards, so hopefully in 200 years that will be just really puzzling to that people who were persecuted or beaten up or murdered or denied the ability to legally adopt a child because of their sexual preferences. We should be there by now and we are in urban areas, but we’re not in the rest of the world, or even the rest of the country.

Perhaps it’s because Mother’s Day does not emanate the same essence of its lustful partner, Valentine’s Day. Perhaps you’ve just come home from work via the delayed E train and little Billy has decided that pizza is no longer his favorite food and the last love note you received from your partner was through Twitter. For mothers with ambitious careers and active social lives, the perfect Mother’s Day might just consist of a high-quality foot rub and a few moments of repose. If you’re looking for something a little more fun, rewarding and dare I say it – sexy, try any of these family-friendly dates for the special day.

Idea No. 1: Dirty Dancin’ at Baby Loves Disco
May 2nd, 2-5 PM, Southpaw, 125 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217
$12 Advance, $15 Door Admission, http://www.babylovesdisco.com/locations/brooklyn
This event, albeit ten full days before May 10th, can serve as a fun preamble to M-Day. Baby Loves Disco is a monthly event housed at Southpaw in the heart of Park Slope in Brooklyn. Hosted by Brooklyn mommy Heather Murphy Monteith, the event caters to both couples and their tots. Do not worry: you will not hear one single version of “Baby Beluga” or any other children’s classic. Monteith has enlisted real (yes, REAL) DJs to provide enough sound material to have your booty shakin’ all the way from the dance floor to the bedroom (during junior’s nap, of course). Additionally, Baby Loves Disco provides more playscapes than your local McDonald’s with a bubble machine, diaper station, healthy snacks and more. Best part? Mommy and daddy may enjoy adult beverages as well as interact with other parents. As Monteith states, “Make no mistake; this is not the Mickey Mouse Club, and Barney is banned.”

Idea No. 2: Crusin’
Staten Island Ferry, Lower Manhattan, 4 or 5 to Bowling Green, R or W to Whitehall
Free of Cost, http://www.siferry.com
Mother’s Day cruises have always been a gold mine for travel agencies and websites. With our current recession/depression/holy-crap-my-401K-just-became-a-201K, even the abundant bargains are still most likely out of reach. However, most people neglect the fact that there is a way to cruise the expansive seas (OK, the Hudson) without so much as dropping a dime. Yes, my friends, I am talking about the Staten Island Ferry. You may ask, “What makes riding something as old as the Lusitania sexy and family friendly?” Here is where it is necessary to expand your imagination. At home, have the children assist in making a picnic lunch. Pack some Sunny D and pick up some beer. Let the kid(s) ooh and ahh over important historical landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty while you and your significant other feed each other fruit. If you can arrange to go at sundown, you’ll be in for an extra treat.