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Have you been putting off selecting the location for your wedding? There are several convincing reasons why on-beach weddings have become so popular with couples about to be married. Instead of more traditional weddings held in churches, more and more couples are choosing less formality and more romance. They are being married on the beach, surrounded by their friends and family members.

Here are four convincing reasons why getting married on the beach makes good sense:

1. An on-beach wedding is unforgettably magical and unequaled for its air of romance. The beach setting is almost guaranteed to leave you starry-eyed. Imagine yourself on a sparkling white-sand beach with a gentle ocean breeze wafting the light perfume of your tropical wedding flowers all around you. Then picture the bubbling water dancing lightly onto the sand, carried onto the beach by glistening azure waves. Try to imagine the ultimate moment, the magical time when you stand facing your beloved, surrounded by your loved ones and lit by the golden rays of the setting sun. Looking lovingly into each others eyes, you say, “I do.”

2. Treasured memories for your guests. No event creates memories quite like a wedding. For your loved ones and other guests, a beach wedding means more than the opportunity to share your happiness. An on-beach wedding gives your guests a chance to get away from work, travel and relax. It might even mean they can extend their stay and have a vacation. An on-beach wedding gives your guests something to anticipate, and the more exotic the location, the better.

3. An on-beach wedding is less expensive than you might expect. If your budget allows it you can fly in a large number of guests, book a whole resort hotel, host a lavish two-day party and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on your wedding. Beach weddings, however, don’t need to be that expensive. You can opt for an intimate, private wedding with you, the minister, the sand and the waves. It will hardly cost you anything. You’ll be surrounded by natural beauty when your wedding is on a beach, unlike indoor weddings. The beautiful surroundings allow you to use fewer flowers and decorations. Seaside settings also allow you to save on clothing as you can dress more casually for the wedding. Beach weddings provide maximum budget flexibility yet provide a truly magical experience.

4. An on-beach wedding is easy to plan. Once you’ve settled on a location, you can breathe easy. Even without the help of a professional wedding planner, organizing a beach wedding is pleasurable and entertaining, especially if you and your husband or wife-to-be work as a team.

You can simplify the planning process by creating a theme (such as tropical, musical or luau) for your beach wedding. Beach wedding coordination then becomes a relatively straightforward process of tracking down capable service providers, negotiating the best deals and making sure that your guests have the help and advice they need as they complete their plans to attend.

Even better, your on-beach ceremony can be at the same resort where you will have your honeymoon, which can begin as soon as the reception is over. No packing, trip to the airport or long flight. Just kick back and enjoy it!

BeachWeddingMagic helps couples create their own magical on beach wedding. Visit BeachWeddingMagic.com for expert advice on planning a beach wedding, wedding decorations, flowers, wedding planners and much more.

US couples spend an average of $20,000 on their weddings. Decorations are usually around 8% of the total wedding cost, averaging about $1,600. But wedding beach decorations can be less expensive if you plan well. Continue reading and you’ll learn how.

Finding decorations for your beach ceremony is a no-brainer, right? Maybe if you’re a creative genius. For the rest of us things can be a bit more complicated.

Follow these simple tips for creating chic, hassle-free beach decorations for your wedding.

Flooring

If you are planning a casual, barefoot wedding, forget about flooring. If however, you are planning a more formal ceremony, you’ll want flooring. Why? Without it, shoes will fill with sand, pants and dresses will become soiled, wet or torn and guests will have difficulty walking. Also, if any of your guests are elderly or infirm, you’ll want to provide chairs for them. Without flooring, chairs can easily sink into the sand and tip over.

Rental companies frequently offer flooring. Including set up, the typical cost is $3.50 – $4.00 per square foot.

Arches

Many styles of arches are available, probably as many as there are brides who would love a beach wedding. It’s easy to rent an arch but making your own is often cheaper. Begin with a metal or wood arch from a hobby shop or building supply store, then decorate it to suit your taste.

These two sophisticated types of arches are perfect as wedding beach decorations:

Tropical Arch: Start with your metal or wood arch and wrap palm or banana leaves around it. Add a big dash of color with tropical flowers like antherium, birds-of-paradise or heliconia. Hang a large seashell, starfish or other beach item from the peak and you’re done.

Chuppah arches: Often used in Jewish ceremonies, chuppahs are canopies made with a cloth or sheet supported by four poles. A chuppah provides an intimate ceremony and shade for the wedding couple. For additional appeal, use shorter poles and ask members of your wedding party to assist, with one holding each of the poles during your wedding.

Decorative Accessories

Here are five ideas to help you think outside the box and complete your wedding beach decorations inexpensively:

1. Use local flowers to line the aisle. If there are chairs on both sides, hang flowers from the chair backs or arms. If you don’t have chairs, make an aisle by putting palm fronds or banana leaves on the sand. Then add color by placing orchids or local flowers on top of the leaves.

2. Enhance your decorations with torches. Tiki torches are just what the doctor ordered to balance and harmonize your wedding beach decorations. Two rows of torches placed four feet apart can be used to create a natural aisle. If you already have an aisle, plant the torches randomly and light them to create a textbook tropical atmosphere. If your wedding takes place at dusk, all the better.

3. Ribbons are another spot-on accompaniment for beach weddings. Ribbons, fluttering and waving in the ocean breeze, are just the thing for setting off your celebration. Use pastel colors in pink, blue and coral. Make sure ribbons are well-secured so they don’t blow away.

4. If you scatter local items like starfish, seashells, coconuts and palm leaves throughout the area you’ll harmonize your wedding beach decorations with their setting. Make sure you don’t put any sharp items where guests might accidentally step on them and hurt themselves.

5. Boat oars, anchors and fishing net are also perfect elements for unifying your beach wedding theme. Borrow these from friends or nearby residents along the beach.

More Money Saving Ideas

Instead of buying expensive items like flooring, tables, chairs and other large items, it makes sense to rent them. If you want to buy them anyway, buy what’s on sale at warehouse clubs and hobby shops. Skip items that aren’t on sale.

Instead of buying or renting smaller decorations, borrow from family and friends. Someone you know probably has an arch, extra ribbon or sea shells they would be happy for you to use in your ceremony. Make a list of what you need and ask around.

Make some of your own beach decorations. Bows, signs, ribbons and those types of decorative items are easy to make, and making them yourself will save you money.

Use locally grown flowers whenever possible. They’re usually cheaper than flowers grown elsewhere. Another consideration is the limited shelf life that flowers have. If flowers aren’t sold quickly, within just a few days, they have to be thrown out. Ask local florists for special deals on flowers that need to be sold quickly.

Keep it simple. When you get married on a beach, the surroundings are the decorations. You don’t need much else. Include a few tasteful accessories and you’re home free.

Beach Wedding Magic is devoted to helping couples create their own magical on beach wedding. Visit BeachWeddingMagic.com for expert advice on wedding beach decorations, cakes, flowers, wedding planners and much more.

Now you can relax, because when you decided to have a beach wedding instead of a more traditional setting, you just may have made the best decision of your life. No mundane local event center wedding for you; instead, you’ll have a romantic, picturesque seaside wedding. Beach wedding planning can be more complicated than planning for a traditional ceremony, however, so you’ll want to simplify wherever you can.

How can you simplify planning your wedding on the beach? We’ve developed a practical five-point strategy to help you plan a magical ceremony on your wedding beach.

1. Realism is Important

Whether their location is a beautiful church or on a scenic beach, it takes a lot of time to plan and organize weddings. Beach weddings involve a lot of things, including finding the right beach, booking flights or other travel arrangements, organizing the flowers and food, choosing the perfect wedding dress, organizing the reception and more. You see the problem.

For maximum results with minimal stress, it’s best to begin your wedding planning process at least 12 months in advance. This will give you ample time to book hotels, buy airline tickets, arrange your wardrobe and mail invitations. It will also give your guests enough time to make their own travel plans.

2. Select Your Setting

Selecting a wedding beach for your ceremony should be done as early as possible in the planning process. Why? More popular wedding beach venues are booked well in advance and you don’t want to end up settling for a less than ideal spot. Also, the remainder of your preparation process (selecting caterers, photographers, florists, etc.) will hinge on your chosen location.

Once you make a decision on location, commit to it. It will make the rest of your planning much simpler and easier.

3. Anticipate the Weather

You really don’t need to worry about the weather with indoor weddings. Beach ceremonies, on the other hand, make weather a real factor. Rain on the day of your wedding might be unwanted, but you can deal with it if you are inside a church. A beach may not offer any type of shelter.

This means that you and everyone else at the ceremony may need to quickly decide whether to continue with the wedding or stop it. Because you can’t plan the weather on the beach, you need to anticipate it by arranging a backup location. The best way to do this is to make arrangements for the alternate site as soon as you choose your wedding beach. Your backup will give you a place to hide from the weather if it turns ugly.

4. Secure Your Service Providers Early

Another critical component of beach wedding planning is finding the most competent wedding service providers to work for you. The best service providers are booked well in advance and typically charge more for spur of the moment service requests.

Ask the staff of local hotels in the area for recommendations. Most will happily provide you with a list of reliable florists, photographers and other providers. Sometimes you can negotiate a better deal with wedding service providers by having a local business refer you.

5. Don’t Procrastinate on Paperwork

After you’ve selected the right beach location and you’ve lined up your wedding service providers, you can move on to completing paperwork. What paperwork do you need to worry about? If you are a US citizen and your wedding is in another country, you definitely will need a passport.

You’ll also need a marriage license (which typically requires a blood test), forms for the bride to complete if she wants to change her name, and for most venues, a permit to hold the ceremony on the beach. This paperwork isn’t difficult, but you don’t want to overlook anything.

To avoid feeling overwhelmed, create a wedding planning blueprint using these tips as a guideline. Follow your blueprint and you’ll be on your way to organizing a magical celebrations on your wedding beach.

BeachWeddingMagic is devoted to helping soon-to-be-married couples create their own magical on beach wedding. Visit BeachWeddingMagic.com for tips and advice on choosing the best wedding beach, decorations, flowers, clothing and much more.

If you are beginning your beach wedding planning process, then you probably already know that finding the right venue for your celebration can make the difference between a dream wedding and one that is not so dreamy.

The venue you decide on will also govern how far you will need to travel and where to look for the florist, caterer, photographer and other people who will provide services at your wedding. Beach venues, especially in international destinations, can also require some additional paperwork for you and your guests.

Here are some tips to help you settle on a wedding beach that’s just right for your celebration:

Enter “beach wedding locations” into your favorite Internet search engine. Look for a hotel or other business in a desirable area that owns a private beach. The reason a private beach is preferable to a public beach is that you will usually need to obtain a permit in order to hold your ceremony on a public beach. Local agencies are happy to issue such permits, but regulations on many public beaches ban you from bringing chairs, erecting temporary structures (such as tents and awnings), consuming alcohol (such as champagne) or having floral arrangements.

No permit is needed to use a private beach as the setting for your ceremony, provided the owner gives permission for your wedding. Beach owners usually have more relaxed rules about what can be done on their property, so you will have more flexibility to set up and decorate your wedding beach however you like. If you need this kind of freedom, book your beach venue through a business that owns an exclusive section of beach. Hotels are likely candidates.

You should also decide how far you want to travel. Do you prefer getting married on the United States mainland, or are you also considering international destinations as well? When you are deciding how flexible you want to be about your travel, also consider any possible travel limitations your guests might have.

If you’re planning a seaside wedding in a foreign country, your guests will have to schedule time away from their jobs as well as set aside money for their travel costs. Depending on which country they live in, some of your guests might need tourist visas to reach your wedding’s location.

There is less chance that American citizens will need a tourist visa, but they still will be required to have a valid passport before being permitted to travel outside the US. The bottom line is that although selecting a wedding beach in a foreign country clearly can be worth the annoyance, you will have some additional hurdles to overcome.

Fortunately, the United States offers an abundance of spectacular locations for your seaside wedding. Beach venues in the US are located along hundreds of miles of coastline on the country’s mainland, or if you prefer, offshore within US territory.

The mainland offers a number of highly desirable wedding beach venues, including the Outer Banks of North Carolina, Fort Lauderdale Beach, Florida, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and San Diego, California. And Hawaii, far away from the US mainland in the Pacific Ocean, is simply one of the most breathtaking and accommodating wedding destinations you could find anywhere. It’s no wonder that hundreds of couples select Hawaii for their wedding celebration every year.

If you have your heart set on an even more far-flung destination, then there are plenty of stunning beaches around the world to choose from. Pristine beaches and plentiful beach wedding resources await you at coastal areas in Mexico, Greece, Barbados, Aruba and the Seychelles Islands. Most countries that are renowned for their beaches offer all the resources you need to turn your seaside wedding fantasy into reality.

These tips, along with the amount of money you can spend, can guide your decision about where you will have your wedding. Beach venues can be found almost everywhere, and finding the right one is a process that will be filled with exhilaration and anticipation.

Beach Wedding Magic is devoted to helping couples create their own magical on beach wedding. Visit BeachWeddingMagic.com for suggestions and advice on wedding beach venues, flowers, decorations, wedding planners and much more.

You want your beach wedding ceremony and reception to be a picture-perfect event where your family and friends come together to share your new-found joy.

It is essential to choose the right centerpieces since these will serve as the focal point of tables at your wedding. Beach centerpieces should be striking and natural-looking. They should blend seamlessly with the beach theme.

The four primary ingredients of wedding beach centerpieces are sand, glass, sea shells and flowers. These ingredients can be easily interchanged allowing for almost infinite centerpiece designs that are dazzling as well as practical.

Here are some tips for creating attention-grabbing centerpieces.

Playful Candles: This is the most basic and easiest design. Start with a small transparent glass vase – the kind sometimes used to shield candles from the wind. Fill the vase about 1/3 full with white sand. Place a lit candle on top of the sand, surround the vase with flower leis and sea shells and voila! You have classic table centerpieces for your wedding. Beach centerpieces like this one are delicate and pretty. They are also inexpensive and fun to make.

Tropical Flowers: To create a centerpiece that blends perfectly with beach surroundings, choose a larger vase heavily textured with a sandy, rocky surface. Balance the muted tone of the vase by filling it with zesty red antherium, hibiscus and birds of paradise flowers. Surround the flowers with palm or banana leaves. Add a few large shells and you have an elegant, “beachy” centerpiece to complement your reception.

Beach Buckets: For a more playful centerpiece, collect several small, brightly colored sand buckets (the kind designed for toddlers). Next, arrange a small pile of sand on the table. Place the bucket in the sand. Fill the bucket about one quarter full of sand. Place a small votive candle in the sand inside the bucket. Surround the bucket with small shells, starfish, seahorses and sand dollars. Light the candle and enjoy a gorgeous beach wedding centerpiece that only took you a few minutes to create! For an extra touch, add a few miniature rakes at each table so your guests can enjoy the serenity of their own tiny Zen garden.

Centerpiece Do’s and Don’ts: You might want some additional tips if your reception will be outdoors, in addition to the wedding. Beach sun can wilt flowers very quickly on a hot summer day, and those gentle beach breezes can sometimes become gusts that can blow out your candles at the wrong moment.

Fortunately, you can avoid this with some planning. If your centerpieces use candles, ensure that they’re well shielded. You can use something as simple as a glass to serve this purpose.

Choose flowers that will stand up to direct sunlight and high temperatures. For example, antherium, calla lilies, ginger and bird of paradise all do this well. An experienced florist can help you achieve the ideal balance between beauty and longevity.

Don’t buy any flowers until you tell your florist you plan to use them on an outdoor wedding beach. Ask your florist to give you one flower so you can test it. Put it in a vase and place it near the planned location of the reception. Keep an eye on it for several hours to see how well it does in the sun and heat.

Beach centerpieces that reflect your personal style can be created inexpensively by using these tips to blend the best flowers with sea shells, sand and glass.

BeachWeddingMagic helps soon-to-be-married couples create their own magical on beach wedding. Visit BeachWeddingMagic.com for suggestions and how tos on wedding beach centerpieces, decorations, flowers, wedding planners and much more.