Coordinating your own Small Beach or Park Wedding

By Gayle Liteheart, Licensed Wedding Officiant,

Wedding Concierge and Wedding Minister

 WeddingsOnaWhim.com

     Some Wedding Concierge Companies such as WeddingsOnaWhim.com in Central Florida's Gulf Coast are available to guide, empower and enable brides to coordinate their own affordable wedding their own way.

      These services have spent many years and much effort finding perfect settings and building good relationships with local locations, facilities and services, so that in addition to providing someone to performing the ceremony, they can also lead couples seeking towards additional locations and services, such as a florist or day spa.

      Their Licensed Wedding Officiants and Wedding Concierges interview couples over the internet and the telephone, taking the time to learn and care about their specific Wedding Dreams.  Then the staff assists couples to make their ceremony the best reflection of those dreams, their personalities and the way they feel about one another.  The information and expertise included in this service saves couples countless hours of research, planning, indecision, booking, costs and stress.

      Some choose to create an outdoor wedding in conjunction with a dinner boat or  restaurant with separate banquet rooms that can host a celebration for less than hotels.

      A beach or park site ceremony can often be arranged as a stand up affair for under 50.

This natural setting creates an easy, affordable shared and intimate experience for everyone.  Most public beaches or parks do not require site fees; however guests may have to pay for parking or entering. 

       To help with the ceremony details, WeddingsOnaWhim.com provides couples with a Wedding Day Checklist.  This will eventually be used as the outline for the ceremony and its participants.  It serves to help guide the couple through their ceremony.  They also receive themed ceremonies and readings, blessings and demonstrations from which to choose.  One popular demonstration involves shells, sand or stones that are blessed during the wedding and later become keepsakes.

      The accents and decorations used for the ceremony should be personal expressions of the bride and groom and they should be environmentally safe.  Flowers, shells and feathers are all examples of natural beach setting decorations that are frequently collected and purchased by the couple or a friend - to be used by the guests to embellish the outline of a sacred heart or circle - in order to create a unique and personal ceremony setting.

      If couples choose to arrange for the arch & chairs themselves, they will need to coordinate the rental, delivery, set up and decorations (from $225 to $600) & receive permission from the beach or park.  Rental companies are usually required to have liability insurance. 

     If the ceremony is indoors, additional set ups can often be arranged  through the florist or the facility.   Although these additions can add to the ambiance, we believe that the Bride & Groom, the beautiful beach and the precious ceremony make a wonderful, natural and simply romantic setting.  The wind, the birds and the surf can provide the “music!”    And couples with a small budget will enjoy the economics of this choice!

      Weddings for under 50 guests can be designed to be very intimate.  The heart or circle allows for a very romantic, shared alternative experience, as the guests gather around it. Aside from the obvious economic benefit, another advantage of the stand up ceremony is that guests can be better positioned to see, hear and feel  the ceremony.  The Officiants at Weddings On a Whim.com suggest a few interactive readings to involve guests even more. 

       Chairs are comfortable however, most ceremonies last approximately 20 minutes, so there is no need to sit for such a short period of time.  Chairs are better suited for elaborate weddings of 50 or more, where the guests have to wait a longer period of time for the bride to appear.   Stand up ceremonies for less than 50 do not usually require permits either.

      For groups of less than 35 who are standing, a public address system is usually not necessary with stand up ceremonies of 35 or less.  At select ceremony locations, a “Day of” coordinator can be hired in order to receive, set up and arrange chairs and other decorations.  Some hotels and some restaurants have their own chairs and staff to assist.   

      The benefits of working with a hotel include receiving access to their lists of vendors, onsite staff to oversee the ceremony celebration, one stop shopping and catering packages.

Many hotels offer rentals of chairs and arches; however, they often charge additional site fees for beach or outdoor weddings. 

     The following is a list of the Basic Beach and Park  Wedding Items most brides and grooms could plan for:  Wedding Officiant, Photographer, Videographer, Live Entertainer, Florist, Limousine, Hairdresser, Cake, Hotel Accommodations, Restaurant Reception, Traveling Expenses, Car Rental, Wedding Attire, Rings, Marriage License, Tips.   Larger weddings - & small beach & park weddings - may add D.J. Entertainment or Live Band, Wedding Coordinator, Rehearsal Dinner & Rehearsal, Facility Rental, Programs, Decorations, additional Flowers & Favors.