Budget-friendly beach wedding options

A beach wedding doesn't have to be expensive to be lovely. We found so many ways to creatively cut costs for our big day, from the location to the attire. Here are some tips we'd love to share from our experience planning a beach wedding:

Consider renting a beach house
We looked into having the wedding at one of the many beachfront hotels in the area, but most had a huge charge for just having a ceremony on "their" sand. Many of them also had food/beverage minimums for the reception, on top of room rental charges, a request that we guarantee a certain number of sleeping room reservations, and a requirement that we only use their staff for the catering. A wedding and reception at a hotel can quickly become expensive, especially if you are considering an exclusive boutique hotel.

A beach house, though, offers a lot for a lot less. Many in the Destin area were available anywhere from a few days to a full week or more. The entire wedding party can stay in some of the larger beach houses that are available in most towns, and you can have the wedding and reception there for no extra room charges. You are free to use whichever caterers you like or even prepare the meal yourself. Plus if you rent the house for a full week, the rest of the wedding party can leave the next day, and you've got the whole house to yourselves for the week - what a great way to relax in luxury! Just make sure that the contract with the house rental company/owner does not prohibit having a wedding on site. Some contracts do add an additional cleaning fee for a wedding, but you should still come out ahead cost-wise over having a wedding and reception at a beachfront hotel.

In our case, we chose a large beachfront house with beautiful verandas. We could have the ceremony on the beach in front of the house and then retire to the verandas for the reception.

The original beach house we rented, Casa de Crystal:


The beach house we ended up using, thanks to Hurricane Ivan and the amazing work of our wedding coordinators:



The downside to a beach house: many are only available for weekly rentals from Saturday to Saturday or Sunday to Sunday, so you may need to be flexible with the day of the week you tie the knot. The upside of a weekday wedding: you can often get a discount from caterers, DJs and other vendors because you aren't having your wedding on the weekend.

Plan Small
Even a bigger beach house probably isn't practical for a huge wedding with 100 or more guests. So plan small. Or smaller. Beach houses are great for weddings of, say, under 50 people, depending on the size of the house. A smaller wedding also means that you'll save on catering, the wedding cake (you won't need as large a cake), favors, and other items. A smaller guest list also means you'll be able to devote more time and attention to each guest at the reception. After all, if someone flies in across the country for your wedding, it's nice to be able to spend more than a minute or two with them!

Don't blow the budget on your wardrobe
It's so tempting to walk into a bridal boutique, try on a bunch of dresses, and walk out several thousand dollars later. But let's be realistic: you are getting married on the beach. In the sand. You might even take photos after the ceremony IN the water. Does it really make sense to spend a small fortune on a dress you'll wear one time, especially when that one time is on the beach? I fell in love with an Amsale wedding gown, but I just couldn't justify the cost.

I tried on what seemed like a million dresses before finding "the" dress at David's Bridal. I'd just missed the $99 sale, and it seemed absurd to pay $350 for the dress. So I turned to ebay, and snagged the dress there for $99. Yes, I bought my wedding dress off ebay.

Trying on the sample gown in the store:


To make the dress a little more unique to me and my tastes, I removed the flower at the waist. I then bought several yards of aqua blue dupioni silk online and sewed a silk sash that was stitched to the gown's drop waistline. I had plenty of silk left over, so I also ended up with ribbons made from the silk, which I used to tie up my bridal bouquet. My aunt later took the rest of the leftover silk and used it to make a quilt for Meredith.

My wedding dress did require a little bit of alteration, so I called one of the nicer bridal boutiques in Tulsa and asked to speak to their alterations department. They only did alterations if you bought your gown from them, but they were happy to refer me to members of their team who took on alterations jobs on the side and could work on my dress outside of regular business hours. I was able to get the dress perfectly altered without paying a fortune!

Accessories for the bride can easily eat up your budget, so I was determined to go low cost. I wanted a beach-y themed but understated headpiece. I couldn't find what I liked, so I hit the craft stores for a headband, beach glass, pearls, and tiny shells. The result, for under $15:


I made a matching bracelet, and I splurged on a pair of pearl earrings.

I've never understood the point of spending a small fortune on shoes for the bride either. How many people are looking at your feet? We were having a beach wedding, so the natural choice for footwear: white flip flops. I bought mine at Old Navy. Easy and inexpensive.

To complete my attire, I knew I wanted a long veil, but I was horrified by what bridal boutiques charged for cathedral-length veils. So I got on the phone and called my best friend with a HUGE favor: she'd gotten married almost a year to the day before my first date with Mike, and she'd worn an absolutely GORGEOUS cathedral-length veil adorned with pearls and crystals. I asked if I could wear it as my "something borrowed." I promised to take good care of it and take it off as soon as the ceremony was over. She agreed, and I was able to borrow a veil that cost several times what I'd paid for my wedding dress!

For Mike and the groomsmen, tuxedos seemed like overkill for a beach wedding, but I didn't want anything too casual. We settled on a happy medium: khakis, white button down shirts, navy blazers and ties. It was somewhat preppy without being too casual or too overdressed. Plus what guy doesn't own a pair of khakis? We purchased beach-themed Tommy Hilfiger ties and navy blue flip flops (again from Old Navy) for the guys. Mike wore blue, the rest of the groomsmen wore the yellow ties.
For the bridesmaids, we chose simple pale blue dresses. We saved on the dresses by purchasing them with no frills service: We called Pearl's Place, a bridal boutique outside New Orleans. We called with the designer name, the model number, sizes, etc., and they ordered the dresses and shipped them to us. You need to have all of the information they need to place the order when you call, and you'll have to pay for everything upfront and have all of the dresses shipped to one place, but you can get the dresses at or near cost, instead of paying the marked up price most bridal boutiques charge. You're on your own for alterations, so be sure to be as accurate as possible with the sizes you need. The dresses came with a belt at the waist, so we removed the belts and replaced them with white satin ribbon sashes, using ribbon from a craft store. The girls wore flip flops as well.

Let your location guide your decor
You're having a beach wedding, so use some beach-y elements in your decor. We were inspired by this photos from Martha Stewart Weddings:


This photo became the inspiration for our table centerpieces. When Hobby Lobby marked their glass vases and then later their candles down 50%, we hit the store and purchased clear glass hurricanes and vases in various sizes, along with an abundance of white pillar candles. These items were boxed up, along with other wedding supplies, and made the long drive to Florida with us. As for the sand, well, that's free on the beach!

As for seashells, starfish, and sand dollars, we would not recommend waiting to find those on the beach the day before your wedding unless you're getting married on a beach known for great shelling, like Sanibel Island, Florida. We were able to order an abundance of inexpensive starfish on ebay. Seashells for our wedding decor came from craft stores, our shell stash from prior beach visits, and ebay. The end result: centerpieces for a small fraction of the cost a florist would charge for a fancy arrangement!

Because we knew we'd be outside for our reception, we needed some additional lighting. We took our candelight decor a step further, purchasing a luminary bag kit online: we received white bags, tealights, and cups for the tealight candles. We then filled the bags with sand (again, free) from the beach. Luminaries lined the pool deck and the stairs.


In terms of ceremony decor, let's face it, a beautiful beach doesn't need much in the way of decoration! We were inspired by this photo from a Florida panhandle florist and decided that we could duplicate the bamboo posts at the "altar" area.


We purchased two bamboo posts from Michaels, and then when both Michaels and Hobby Lobby marked down their silk flowers, we purchased white silk tulips and pale blue silk hydrangeas. We purchased ribbon in a variety of pale blues, aquas and whites from craft and fabric stores and glued them to the tops of the bamboo posts. I wove the silk flowers into bouquets, held together with florist wire. The plan was to simply drop the bouquet stems into the hollow tops of the bamboo posts. Unfortunately, with all the list minute location changing, we forgot to put the bouquets into the posts, but the ribbon posts themselves made it to the beach, and were lovely!

My dad being silly with the bamboo posts after the ceremony. We still have those posts too, by the way. They've been hanging out in the garage. We have some ideas about incorporating them into our landscape design for the backyard, but having another baby put a temporary halt to a lot of our backyard DIY plans.


Forget the florist, if you can.
Most brides automatically think of flowers when they think of weddings, but the reality is that a good florist can eat up a huge chunk of your budget. By using sand, shells, candles, and vases, we were able to avoid paying a florist for expensive table decor. And by making our own bamboo posts we were able to avoid paying a florist for expensive ceremony decor too.

That just left the bouquets and boutonnieres. The issue of boutonnieres we solved easily by making our own out of extra seashells and starfish we'd gathered to use as part of the reception decor. You can purchase pearl-tipped corsage pins in the floral section at most craft stores. Add some hot glue and some ribbon, and you're done.

As for the bouquets, this was the one area where we really DID need real flowers. I had my heart set on white tulips, which aren't common in early October. I wanted a very simple bouquet of white tulips, tied together with the silk ribbons that matched the silk sash on my wedding dress. I loathed the idea though of paying for a florist's time and skills for such a simple bouquet.

That spring, when tulips were readily available in grocery store floral sections, I bought a a few dozen and spent an afternoon with florist tape, florist wire, and ribbon, making a few practice bouquets. I was easily able to get the look I wanted, so we decided that bouquets were another area where we could apply our DIY skills and save some money.

In 2004, when we got married, our options for inexpensive flowers were more limited than they are now. Now you can order bulk flowers or "wedding packs" from Sam's Club and have them delivered to your wedding site. Simply tie together the flowers you want for each bouquet, and you're finished! At the time, Sam's didn't sell white tulips in bulk, so we contacted local florists near our wedding location and inquired about the cost of ordering bulk tulips from them. Ordering the flowers was easy. We simply picked them up on the day of the wedding, on the way back to the beach house after we picked up our marriage license.

My bouquet - not bad for a DIY job!


The blue and white faux pearl stems in the bouquet were another easy DIY project: we strung faux pearls from a craft store onto beading wire. We then twisted the wire into a circle and attached it to a stem of floral wire. We covered the top of the floral wire with florist tape to hide where we'd attached the two pieces together. And of course, since we were planning ahead, we bought the beads and beading wire only when they were marked down at Michaels and Hobby Lobby. We made similar bouquets for the bridesmaids. If I recall correctly, our total spent on flowers was under $100.

Don't overspend on stationary
Yes, your wedding invitation (or save the date card) may be the first glimpse your guests get of your wedding, but that doesn't mean it needs to be expensive. More and more stores from Michaels to Office Depot now sell DIY invitation kits. You simply type up what you want, run the blank invitations through the printer, and then use the included ribbons, charms or other decor to finish off the invitation. Although these do tend to be a bit on the generic side, they're a great low cost option for couples on a tight budget.

Not surprisingly, we opted to make our own invitations. We started with simple Save the Date cards: we printed four to a page on our home printer, cut them apart, stuck them in envelopes and mailed them. It was a simple card with a faded beach photo in the background and text overlaid.

The actual invitations were more time consuming, but worth the effort.


We purchased the blue folders from Envelopments. The starfish came from ebay, and the ribbon from a craft store. Inside, we had the actual invitation, the reply card, and a trifold brochure with more details about the wedding and the Destin area for our guests (although obviously, our last names weren't whited out). All of the printed items were made on our computer and printed at home. We did have to add a little bit of extra postage because of the starfish, but as far as we know, we only had one or two reports of a piece of starfish breaking in transit. We spent a lot of time creating the invitations, but investing our time saved money AND we got a unique look for our wedding invitations. That's hard to beat!

Know when to hire a pro
All DIY tips aside, there does come a point when you may need to a hire a professional. Having beautiful wedding photos was important to us, so we hired a professional who was within our budget but who was very talented. If you have a friend who happens to be a professional wedding photographer and is VERY generous, perhaps he or she would be willing to shoot your wedding as a gift to you, but if not, it's worth the extra $ to hire a good photographer. After all, you'll be looking at those photos for years to come.

We also hired a professional for the wedding cake and the groomscakes. I make a darn good cake, but my cake decorating skills are frankly quite sad. We hired a pastry chef recommended by our wedding coordinator, and we ended up with what were possibly the two tastiest cakes I've ever enjoyed. Because our guest list was on the smaller side, the cakes didn't have to be huge, so we did save a little there.

Finally, we did splurge and hire a caterer. Originally, my plan was to have my dad make a huge pot of his famous jambalaya. It's amazing, it can be made ahead of time, and I have yet to meet anyone who has tasted it and not loved it. However, after much consideration and debate with our wedding coordinators, we decided against it. Our guest list grew after my initial desire to have my dad make the main dish, so a lot more food was going to be involved than originally planned. And more people meant the need for more plates, glasses, silverware, etc., plus a bigger pot for cooking, not all of which would likely be available in the beach house's kitchen.

Then of course, there were the logistical issues involved with getting everything cooked, set out, and ready, while still allowing my dad to enjoy the wedding and reception. Oh yeah, and that little issue of where everyone was going to sit while they ate. Had we been close to home (or to my parents' home), we could have easily made arrangements to borrow tables, chairs, white tablecloths, and other needed items, but being far from home made such efforts more difficult, if not impossible.

So we splurged and hired a caterer. The caterer, along with the beach house, was one of the big ticket items for our wedding. However, we have to admit: the caterers were worth it. They brought all of the tables, chairs and tablecloths and set them up. They were able to purchase beer, wine and champagne at a discount that we wouldn't have been able to get on our own. Having a caterer also meant that we had someone at the beach house serving drinks and light hors d'oeuvres while Mike and I stayed on the beach with the photographer to take advantage of an absolutely gorgeous sunset. We saved a bit on the caterer by having a small(er) wedding and by going a little non-traditional with the menu. Instead of the traditional chicken or beef options, we went with a cajun meal that included fried crawfish tails and jambalaya. Okay, so it wasn't my dad's jambalaya, but it was pretty darn good. We also had a buffet set up in the house's dining room, since a buffet requires fewer server than a seated plate dinner, and fewer servers = more savings.

Up next: more photos of the wedding and reception!