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DIY Beach Weddings

More and more couples are going off to exotic locales and getting married on the beach. Here are some ideas for the wedding and reception for your beach wedding.

Beach Wedding Invitations

• Put a small amount of sand in each guest’s wedding invitation.
• Have the invitations resemble a postcard with a photo of the bride and groom at the beach with the words, “Hope you’ll be here…” written in the sand. (Might have to use Photoshop for this unless you can plan a trip to a beach – any beach will do.)

Beach Wedding Decoration

• To decorate guests’ chairs on the beach, string garlands of shells or starfish (coral may snag their clothes) between seats to connect them.
• Have white galvanized buckets holding bottles of water for guests to take as they need and give each person a palm leaf fan to stay cool.
• Place four large rattan poles upright into the sand and drape white gauze over the top as a canopy for guests to sit under. Gauze is only about $5 a yard and comes in a variety of colors.
• At the reception, use decorative pieces of driftwood as place card holders and thread either a beautiful ribbon or natural raffia through a sand dollar to use as a napkin ring.
• On each table use candles that smell like tropical fruit such as mango, papaya, coconut and kiwi.
• Line the base of the gift table, head table or buffet table with real grass skirts – the raffia ones in natural, not the cheap green paper ones.
• Don’t forget to use colors of the beach – sea colors of blues and greens, sunset colors of yellow and gold

Beach Wedding Attire

• Most people would think to dress the wedding party entirely in white, but bridesmaids and groomsmen could wear beach wedding colors in shades of ocean green, sky blue, and sand beige.
• As for the bride’s gown, for ideas, styles and dress suggestions, search under Beach Wedding Dresses.

Wedding Cake, Favors, Music and Other Details

• Avoid having the wedding in the afternoon, instead choose early morning or dusk so guests do not have to sit in the hot sun, and there will be less people using the beach.
• Set the wedding march to a reggae beat and use Caribbean type instruments for the wedding music, such as a steel drum or a bamboo flute.
• Decorate a lobster trap with tropical flowers and use it as a money box or, for something more elegant, have envelopes left in a mother of pearl bowl. A captain’s log book would make an interesting guest book.
• Make sure you have a point of contact at your wedding location, even it you are doing it yourself, hopefully it’s someone you can trust and who will help provide advice or insight. It might cost you, but you’ll probably be glad of the expense by the time your wedding arrives.

If you know of any friends who have had beach weddings, please share any additional ideas.