Finding a Venue

As it turns out, finding a venue for a beach wedding is harder than it may seem.  My general vague plan has always been to rent a beach house for a week to use as a base of operations, and to give the wedding party and important out-of-town family members a place to stay. Then I figured we'd have the ceremony on the beach, and walk the 20 feet back to the house for the reception. I pictured a dance floor, a DJ, round tables set up for dinner, the works.

Then I realized most beach houses rent from Saturday to Saturday only. So, to have a Saturday wedding there, we'd have to check in and do all the set-up the day of,  or else end early enough on Saturday to clean up and check out. Neither of those sounded appealing. This problem was ultimately solved by discovering that in the "off-season"- which can extend as late as June 10 for some places- SOME owners/realtors are willing to rent the house to you on a nightly basis, meaning we could just rent it for, say, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. So, problem solved.

The next problem to come up was that many home owners, in fact, are NOT crazy about 100-150 wedding guests trampling all over their home and lawn, not to mention tent spikes, rental chairs and tables, rental dance floors, etc. In fact, the vast majority of places just say NO weddings, flat out. So. That was a hitch. We solved this just by calling around extensively to a bunch of different places. Some houses mentioned on their rental pages that they're accustomed to hosting weddings there, and that helped. We came up with a short list of houses that would allow weddings. So, problem solved.

NEXT problem was that of the places that allowed weddings, most of them did not have a yard. This was not really unexpected, as most beachfront houses just have dunes and sand in the front yard, and not much in the way of space. I don't really know how to tell someone to overcome this problem except by just doing a lot of looking.

We ended up finding a PERFECT house online that met all of these requirements- nightly rentals, allowed weddings, had a yard- and my fiance and I went down to Carolina Beach this weekend to take a look at it in person. As luck would have it, they were actually having a wedding there when we went by! A guest we started talking to said they had hosted about 150 guests, and that everyone was comfortable, there was enough room for eating and dancing, and essentially that the entire day had gone off without a hitch. The overall experience of the house just totally exceeded my expectations.

For all those brides out there who want a beach/beach house wedding, IT CAN BE DONE!!! But, it does take some legwork and some research. Other issues to consider:
Where will your guests park? (One possibility is parking at the Town Hall and shuttling people to the house. Or, sometimes privately-owned parking lots down at the beach will let you rent out some or all of a parking lot for your guests. You may have to get a little creative with this one.)
What are the local regulations about what you can and cannot set up on the beach? (Some beaches allow tents and chairs, some do not, some don't allow amplified sound... you get the idea. Check the local regulations.)
Do you have to have a permit to get married on the beach? (Again, varies widely from beach to beach- can range from no permit/fee, to an event fee of $250. This may be a factor in which beach you choose, so look this one up early!)

There are definitely a lot more logistic considerations when trying to plan a beach/beach house wedding, but those are some of the ones that should be considered early on. If anyone has a specific question, I might know the answer (no promises, lol!) or might be able to at least offer an opinion, so feel free to ask! Happy hunting!!