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Beach weddings are easy to plan and their cost is quite reasonable. This favorable combination makes considering a seaside wedding a very good idea. Some cultures hold all their weddings on a beach. Whatever influences your decision, if you decide on a seaside ceremony, everything should match the setting’s elegance, including your beach cakes. Wedding pastry shops now offer a wide variety of options in addition to the traditional multi-tiered cakes served at most weddings. Your choices will include some exciting pastry sizes, shapes, colors and designs.

Below are a few tips to help you decide on the perfect pastries to serve at your celebration.

If you use a theme, you can complement it with the shape of the cake you choose. Seaside weddings are ideal for cakes in the shape of seashells, flowers, boats, lighthouses or palm trees.

Colors can also be important when you are planning a beach wedding. Brides often choose white or more subdued colors for their wedding cakes, but with a seaside wedding you might also want to include some generous touches of bright colors. If your wedding has a tropical theme, you could add tropical flowers on and around your cake to match it. If your theme is musical, you could complement the theme by having a skilled cake decorator sculpt icing into shapes such as musical notes or your favorite musical instrument.

Your budget will influence your options, but you may want to consider more exotic flavors for your cake and its frosting. Passion fruit, coconut, and kiwi, combined with mango butter cream or coconut cream frosting, are a few of the flavors that are perfect to serve on your wedding beach. If your budget won’t permit an unusually shaped cake, your guests will love it if you select a more standard shape but your cake features one of these more unusual flavors.

There are many different types of wedding pastries available, and unless you see an example it might be hard to picture the perfect design. You can stimulate your imagination by looking for wedding pastry pictures, both online and in magazines. The design you settle on might incorporate aspects of the best examples you find.

Here are some unusual options to help get you started:

Bem-casados: These pastries are a tradition at Brazilian weddings. Bem-casados are cake sandwiches made by putting sweet delicacies such as caramel sauce, jelly or egg custard between two small sponge cakes. Their sweetness symbolizes the sweet life the bride and groom will have together. Bem-casados are served at Brazilian wedding receptions instead of what other cultures think of as a traditional wedding cake. They come in a variety of playful shapes like hearts, rings and doves, but for beach cakes, wedding bem-casados can be shaped like boats, starfish, flowers or sand dollars.

Wanda Italian Bowtie Pastries: The wanda is a traditional Italian wedding pastry. These small, individual sized pastries are typically shaped as bowties. Wandas can be stacked on a plate to resemble a cake. In Italian wedding ceremonies, the bride and groom often begin a dance with the wedding guests joining in. The wedding party then dances toward the wanda plate where everyone chooses a pastry. The wanda is a fun and delicious wedding cake substitute.

Cupcakes: Rapidly becoming a popular alternative to traditional wedding cakes, cupcakes can create an impressive display when arranged on a multi-tiered cake plate. A wedding cake has only one flavor, but that is not the case with cupcakes. You can present several flavors and let your guests choose their favorite. It is also much easier to transport and set up cupcakes than a multi-tiered wedding cake. Wedding beach cupcakes could be decorated with palm trees, turtles, tropical fish or other things that blend with your theme.

Use your creativity when selecting beach cakes. Wedding pastries at your ceremony should mirror your style, taste and personality.

Beach Wedding Magic helps soon-to-be-married couples create their own magical on beach wedding. Visit BeachWeddingMagic.com for tips and advice on beach wedding cakes, wedding favors, decorations, 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.