Michelle Duggar recalls 'budget' honeymoon with Jim Bob: It was just so precious

How did Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar spend their honeymoon?Wikimedia

When Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar of 19 Kids and Counting first got married, they did not have a lot of money so they decided to be practical about their honeymoon and chose to rent cabins in Mount Nebo and Lake Fort Smith, both of which are in Arkansas.

But when they got to their first destination, they were shocked with what they saw. "We couldn't believe the difference between the photo on the brochure and the reality. The picture showed a lovely cabin right beside a beautiful flowing river, but when we got there, the cabin was really rundown with awful orange curtains - and cobwebs everywhere!" Michelle wrote on her blog.

To make matters worse, the river was completely dried up so they had no access to water at all. They quickly changed plans and stayed at a hotel in Fort Smith. "We didn't get the setting we were anticipating for our first night together, but it was still sweet," said Michelle.

As they were headed towards Mount Nebo, their car started acting up and the couple quickly decided that they should just go home.

Michelle described their new home as "a small fixer-upper house, about 900 square feet total." They spent the rest of their honeymoon fixing up their house, which needed a lot of work.

"Before our wedding, we had ripped out all of the cupboard doors in the kitchen and sanded them down, but we didn't have time to finish them before we got married. So when we got back after our honeymoon, there were no doors on our kitchen cabinets and the place needed a lot of work, but that was okay. We were living on love and it was so exciting," she shared.

Michelle thought it was just too "precious" that they spent their honeymoon in their new house, and she recalls thinking how it was so romantic that Jim Bob was working on their car. "It's funny the little things that you just hold dear to your heart forever," she said.