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Looking into each other’s eyes and saying your vows while the waves crash in the background and the breeze blows through your hair – what could be more idyllic?
Your beach destination wedding should be perfect, but that can feel like a lot of expectation to put on your wedding planning process. Our beach wedding tips will give you a place to start and plenty of inspo when it comes to planning your dream wedding at the beach.
1. Choose the Perfect Wedding Time
The time of day you decide on for your ceremony will determine a lot. It’s going to frame your photos, it’s going to set the stage for the rest of the evening and it will even have an effect on how comfortable you may be during the ceremony.
A sunset beach wedding is one of the most popular choices, especially on the West Coast. Seeing the sunset on the ocean during a golden hour creates stunning wedding photos and you’re less likely to get too warm, even during the peak summer months.
2. Communicate Beachside Wedding with Your Attire
Beachy wedding attire just pulls the whole beach wedding vibe together. While a great elegant gown with a long train might have a place in other wedding venues, the beach usually isn’t it.
Keep things light, flowy and elegant to help you stay cool and get some great shots of the breeze coming off of the waves. Rather than a veil, which might work against you during a particularly breezy day, opt for a flower crown or hairpiece that gives you perfect elegance without getting caught up in the wind.
3. Consider Your Hair
With your beachy wedding attire, it’s pretty tempting to match it with long beachy waves. This can work, and it can look beautiful, but a windy day can also work against you to make the waves fall and your hair messy.
Instead of going for a full beach wave look, try for a wavy updo or half-updo for your long or short hair. This gives your hair a little more structure while still keeping it loose and easygoing. The best part is how beautifully these styles work with the aforementioned flower crowns, hair combs and tiaras.
4. Think Bold with Your Color Palette
Beach weddings are beautiful, which is why they’re far from an unpopular choice in wedding venues. If you want your beach wedding to really stand out, use the natural color palette of the beach to your advantage and think outside of the box.
You’ll frequently see beach palettes with a nautical theme or using muted sandy tones alongside ocean turquoise hues – but what about going bolder?
The blue-green of the ocean juxtaposed with soft white sand really makes jewel tones and vibrant shades pop; try playing with bright corals, jungle greens and lively fuchsias for something striking and different.
5. Consider Guest Welcome Packages
If you’re having a micro-wedding or elopement, you might only have a few guests by your side but even a small guest list deserves something special. Having small welcome packages for them gets everyone in the beach wedding mood.
They don’t have to be extravagant or pricey and might include a hand fan, bottled water, travel bottle of sunscreen and a hand towel in your wedding colors.
6. Check on Your Permits
Some beach wedding locations will require a permit if you plan to hold your ceremony on the beach. This is true whether you’re having a big wedding with a 60-person guest list or you’re trying to elope with just the two of you and a couple of friends.
When choosing your beach location, one of the most important beach wedding tips is to look up permit requirements first to ensure you’re prepared with plenty of time.
Our Cactus Collective Weddings team takes care of getting all necessary permits for you, so you don’t have to take on the permitting obstacle yourself.
Our Coronado Beach and Point Loma beach wedding packages around the San Diego area are beautiful, steeped in history and make the planning process stress-free so you can focus on the fun stuff.
7. Keep Your Vendors Local for Your Destination Wedding
Destination weddings can be trickier to plan if you’re going a pretty good distance to get there and you’re not super familiar with the area.
Start early in researching local vendors and plan to source your flowers, food, and anything else you might need locally. You don’t want to travel with more than you need, and you’re working with far less risk that anything might be lost or ruined before your big day.
Chatting with local vendors may even get you some additional beach wedding tips from those who have daily experience working in the local industry.
Our professionals at Cactus Collective Weddings love a good beach wedding. If you’re dreaming of professing your love with toes in the sand, let’s chat about how to make that dream a reality.
McKenzi Taylor is America’s go-to elopement and micro wedding expert, often featured in small and major media outlets, such as the New York Times. With over 15 years of wedding photography experience, it was after planning her own Las Vegas elopement in 2016 that McKenzi felt her purpose shift into elopement coordination. She started Cactus Collective Weddings soon after in 2017. Since then, she’s become a WIPA board member, and has helped well over 1000 couples get hitched in style around Las Vegas, San Diego and Black Hills.
