Its All About The Money
You can go with an all inclusive beach elopement package, which allows 2-8 participants for less than $800. Even a larger Distinctive Design wedding package with Florida Beach Weddings still qualifies as affordable, or mid-range packages such as the Nautical Knot package or Rustic Romance. And when compared to a traditional wedding venue and reception, the savings a beach wedding package offers you is thousands of dollars. Daytona Beach is definitely the most budget-friendly option where you can often save upwards of 50% by using Daytona Beach for your wedding ceremony! Permits are less and a lot of the beach wedding locations dont have parking fees. Hotels are often cheaper than the Gulf coast. With four beaches to choose from there is plenty to do such as paddle boarding with manatees, fishing or riding horses on the beach. Try beautiful Ponce Inlet for white sand dunes and tranquil wooden walkways.
Daytona Beach Rustic Romance Package
Floral Distinctive Design all-inclusive wedding package: breathtaking!
Siesta Key gulf beach wedding couple
How To Select The Perfect Beach Wedding Location
When planning a beach wedding, location matters.
Perhaps you were inspired to travel to Bali after seeing a glossy magazine advert of the popular tourist destination. With the possibility of endless entertainment before and after the fact, maybe Cancun is more your thing. If you prefer to stay closer to home, Florida or California might be good options. Perhaps the peace and serenity found on islands like Saint Lucia and Grenada compel you to take your wedding party to Caribbean shores. This is where you also might consider the Bahamas or Jamaica – both beautiful island getaways in close proximity to the US.
Whatever the case, it is important to pinpoint a destination before getting your planning underway. Sometimes it helps to select a few potential destinations, weigh the pros and cons, and go from there.
Dream Wedding Builder & Permit Fees
Our Wedding Packages are designed to be All-Inclusive in Nature. However, as we move toward more Fully-Custom Offerings there is simply no way to eliminate these additions/upgrades, etc. This is also what makes it more fun you can completely Customize Your Beach Wedding Ceremony specific to your style and taste! Please Check out our proprietary Beach WeddingStudio: www.gulfbeachweddings.com/dream-wedding-buider
Permits: These are not included with the Wedding Packages we offer, since each Municipality has a different set of Rules & Regulations, thus Permit Requirements. The Beach Ratings Pages offer this in more detail and are automatically integrated to the Wedding Package as you make your selections: Tampa Ratings https://gulfbeachweddings.com/beach-ratings-2/, Destin Ratings https://gulfbeachweddings.com/emerald-coast-beach-ratings/
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What Was The Biggest Thing You Did To Save Money
The biggest thing that I did to save money was finding my location. The location was beautiful and best of all free. The next biggest way that I saved was ordering my cake and cupcakes from Publix. The last biggest way that I saved was on my flowers, instead of having a florist create all of the items that I needed, we ordered buckets of flowers for a cheaper price and still had some left over after everything.
Prepare For Windy Conditions
If it can blow away, it might. Prepare for a windy day, even when not expected. Secure everything you can beforehand to avoid this. Use heavier items to weigh things down, like programmes and place cards, or just get heavyweight stands. You can also tie programmes neatly to chairs. If you plan on tossing dried flower petals, wait to do this, once guests arrive.
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Think Carefully About What Prezzies You Ask For
Too many people only consider wedding gifts at the last moment. But they can be worth a significant amount of cash so consider as soon as you can what you want people to get and how that fits in with your own financial plans so that the two fit together. See Martin’s blog: Am I alone in wanting to know what to give to couples?.
Plan A Bargain Banquet
Food is where most couples go over-budget, especially if you go for a meal during the day and a buffet in the evening. So, look at how many people you’ve invited , work out your budget and divide by the number of guests for your per-head budget.
Meals will cost the most, but buffets, hog roasts or even picnics can be just as smart as well as being far cheaper. Local independent caterers may trump all offers you have, so check out neighbourhood cafes and restaurants.
Another way to massively reduce the cost of food is to have the ceremony later, followed by one big meal, rather than the standard two. Many of our forumites said much of the evening buffet food at their weddings was wasted, and they’d have been better off providing just one meal.
For nibbles and platters, M& S* and Waitrose* have party food sections. Many supermarkets and off-licences offer free glass hire too. You’ll usually have to clean the glasses before returning them though, and will need to pay a deposit in case of breakages.
Also consider having the wedding cake as dessert, to avoid paying for pud. You usually have to provide a meal for the photographer, band and master of ceremonies, so ask caterers if they can do a cheaper option, such as fish and chips.
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Order Food From Your Favorite Local Restaurant
Ive heard of couples ordering from their favorite local Mediterranean restaurant and getting quotes as low as $7 per head, plus all of the serving equipment and dinnerware. Some restaurants even offer to serve the food buffet style for a very reasonable fee. By going to a small or family restaurant instead of a caterer, expectations are not yet set for either party and can often be more easily negotiated. To know how much food to order, speak with the restaurant itself, but also look at the section at the bottom of this post, which explains how much food you need in more detail.
Affordable Destination Wedding Locations In 2021
While some might think a destination wedding comes with a higher price tag than a wedding closer to home, there are also many locations that offer affordable wedding packages. Planning a destination wedding can even lower overall wedding costs because it often prompts a smaller guest list. It also allows you to add your honeymoon to the end of the weddingmeaning, you wont have to pay for two getaways. To help you with the planning process, weve rounded up affordable destination wedding locations that are known for offering amazing scenery and wedding deals.
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Reception With Wood Canopy And Lights
Ken Tan Photo,Floral Design: I Am Flower
“There are so many beautiful touches you can add to a beach wedding to make sure it is fresh and unique. Consider aesthetic and functional lighting features by installing beautiful twinkle lights over the dining and dancing area that melt right into the stars in the sky. Add fun glowing orbs or fairy lights on the beach that light up down to the shore as the sun sets,” advises Shaktman.
Use Technology For Meetings
One of the unexpected expenses of a destination wedding on a budget is meeting with vendors across time zones. Though some may ask you to fly in to iron out your requests, Dennis says you can be just as productive via the interwebs. There are a number of low-cost apps and programs to help you every step of the way. When communicating with your creative partners, see if they are open to Zoom or Skype conferencing. Skype also allows you to make international calls for very little out of pocket, he explains. And when the big day comes along? Use WhatsApp and connect to WiFi to communicate out of the country.
Lindsay Tigar
Lindsay Tigar is a freelance travel and lifestyle journalist and the owner of Tigar Types, LLC., a… digital content agency. Lindsay has been a writer and editor for over ten years, and has written for such publications as National Geographic,Travel + Leisure, Vogue, Fast Company, CNN, and many more. She has also worked as an editor at NBC, and the editorial director for ClassPasss blog, The Warm Up. A North Carolina native, Lindsay moved to New York City after graduating from college. In 2017, she joined the Remote Year program, which allowed her to travel to 15 countries on six continents for 15 months. She now resides in Boston with her fiance and dog.
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A Lot Of The Planning Will Be Out Of Your Control
Davidson said she’s a pretty obsessive person when it comes to planning things.
“You can only imagine the extra effort and energy I gave to planning my wedding,” she said. “Before flying out to our venue, I was confident I had everything covered, from the hotel accommodations of relatives down to making sure the local caterer does not serve anything that our guests are allergic to. But that’s never the case with a destination wedding, it seems.”
She said she had guests who missed their flights, or got their flights delayed and canceled, and her father-in-law’s bag was lost at the airport.
“Plus, the local band we hired backed out at the last minute,” Davidson said. “My husband-to-be spent the whole day before our wedding arduously consoling the Bridezilla-me.”
Jabali, too, said to expect that you won’t be able to plan or manage every change.
“While we loved our destination wedding and would do it all over again, we were surprised by how some of the vendors made changes without our consent,” she said. “For example, our cake maker changed the flavor of our cutting cake and the gift boxes of cookies were much smaller than the samples they provided when we booked them. And, the ‘highly recommended’ videographer literally fell over during our ceremony and didn’t edit the crash out of the video.”
How To Pay For A Beach Wedding
Finding the money to pay for your dream wedding is one of the biggest challenges many couples face as they start planning.
But if youre savvy and thrifty, theres no reason to go into debt to celebrate your big day.
There are a few simple things you can do that will help you plan an amazing wedding without overspending.
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Plan As An Elopement And Consider Guests Later
How much do you “have” to spend on guests when planning your destination wedding? Answer: $0. How much will you spend? Thats up to you, but by thinking in terms of an elopement, you’ll send the message to family and friends that you want to keep it simple, intimate, and about each other.
Elopements are meant to be stress-free and intimate, allowing you to stay within a budget.
When planning, think first about what you and your partner want. Here are some considerations:
- Do you want to have a large wedding at home with family, friends, acquaintances, and a large budget, or would you prefer to get married in one of the most beautiful places in the world with those closest to you and likely spend much less money?
- If you worry about who cant attend, you can always live stream your ceremony to let those who cant attend be part of your special day.
- Even if you have guests attending your destination wedding, consider using the word elopement when inviting them. This gives the impression of a sneaking away to have a private, intimate ceremony. It implies a small guest count, and if youd like to have an intimate dinner for two, none of your guests will be the least bit surprised.
We know first hand that eloping in Hawaii is easy , and were sure many other destination wedding locations can be equally as stress-free and wonderful.
Have A Potluck Wedding
In the past, and still today in many cultures, wedding food was not outsourced to a caterer or a venue. Wedding menus are and were a family project, made with love by caring moms and aunties.
In North America, we seem to have forgotten this completely and see potluck weddings as lesser than for whatever reason, and its too bad. If you have friends or family who love to cook, please consider having a potluck wedding wherein a group of people all contribute something to the feast.
This does have to be carefully planned out and duties must be assigned clearly. Everyone should know their shopping list and quantities to prepare, and take ownership of their dishes and supplies so that you dont have to manage them on your wedding day. So remember to ask people who you trust!
My How to Cater Your Own Wedding: The Essential Step-by-Step Guide has really good tips on how to manage this type of self-catering project.
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Contact Us To Get Started Today
You and your partner deserve to have the wedding of your dreams. This should be a day thats celebrated for the rest of your lives. With Beach Weddings Alabama, this is not only possible, its a guarantee. Contact us to see our availability for the upcoming season, and book your Orange Beach wedding package before dates fill up!
Go For A Lighter Dress
Long gowns may present challenges out on the beachfront. They may look dreamy, and you may even be able to get down the aisle mostly without issue, but the trouble may start when you try navigating the beach to take photos. If youre wearing a super long train this can be a nightmare. Look for something lighter, or at the very least, ensure your dress can bustle easily.
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Add Local Flair To The Menu
Your wedding food and drink should largely represent things you enjoy, but its also a good idea to research whats authentic to your destination and add touches throughout the wedding weekend . It makes it a more authentic experience for everyone to enjoy, Durán says. Your guests didnt travel to eat strip steak with mashed potatoes and asparagus.
Beach Wedding Reception Inspiration
Eating dinner on the beach is not a simple undertaking. From building out a reception structure and on-theme table settings to coordinating safely serving sand-free wedding cake, your beach themed wedding reception deserves to be planned exquisitely so guests can relax and enjoy celebrating the newlyweds.
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