Popular Beach Wedding Ideas

One of the most romantic and fun ways to exchange vows is at a beach wedding. With the natural backdrop of the sandy white beaches, the feel of the gentle ocean breeze and the sound of the waves breaking on the shore, who could ask for anything else more during this important event? I’ll tell you who, brides looking for beach wedding ideas. While the beach location is next to perfect, ideas that will work for weddings in many other locations, sometimes don’t work as well for beachside weddings.

Couples can give this event their own personal slant by choosing their favorite seafood dishes, beach decorations, and perhaps instead of wearing formal wedding attire instead choose beach-inspired clothing in more of a casual style. One thing is certain, no matter how you choose to approach a beach wedding, it is sure to be a hit.

Beach Wedding Fashion and Hair Ideas

While beach wedding attire can be as formal or as casual as you want, you should try to stick with simple style apparel instead of anything that is overdone.

The traditional cinderella gown with layers of satin and tulle covered with lace will not be as comfortable as the dress chosen by the bride pictured here. This dress is still elegant, but will keep you cool and comfortable. It should go without saying to also avoid dresses with a long train.

Anything that is breathable, shorter and makes the wedding participants more comfortable will certainly work well for this special occasion. Romantic Gowns has a great selection of beach wedding dresses here. Just keep in mind that even though you are going more for a comfortable look, you still can be fashionable and princess-like for this event.

While some brides prefer to wear shoes, lots of beach brides choose to forgo shoes and simply go barefoot, others choose the elegance of barefoot sandals. If you do choose to wear shoes keep in mind that anything with a sharp heel will sink easily into the sand.

As with most weddings, it is much easier to plan the grooms clothing because they can opt to wearing something either as traditional as a tuxedo if the wedding is to be more formal or if you are going more casual, tan pants and a white shirt or go for the casually tailored suit look.

When you consider all your beach wedding ideas, make sure to consider the brides hair. Anything elaborate including fancy up dos can often be wasted money when it comes to dealing with the humidity at the beach. This doesn’t mean you cannot choose to wear your hair up, just keep in mind how your hair reacts with humidity. You want your hair to tousle naturally in the wind. So a curly combed through look is flattering after pinning it back loosely and leaving some hair to hang on the sides for the wind to blow through gracefully.

Beach Wedding Favor and Decoration Ideas

An open canopy as a tent can provide reduced sun exposure and still give the guests an opportunity to enjoy the nice feel of the ocean breeze. Set up several tables and place linen on each table in your chosen color scheme. Blue, tan and gold makes a nice beachy color scheme. Tablecloths can be ocean blue and the napkins can be gold representing the golden occasion and use sand and shell place card holders for a finishing touch. An inexpensive idea for centerpieces for the tables is to fill several bottles and vases with sand add a pillar candle or two and then place starfish and seashells around them.

Candle holders can be beach themed and a pineapple can be carved out to represent a flower vase. Get miniature sized bottles, fill them up with sand and place a card in each one representing the guest table number and guest name.

Unique favor ideas would be little knick-knacks like beach towels, flip-flops, lip balm, beach bags or sunglasses for guests to take home as opposed to more traditional wedding favors. You can find unique favors your guests will always remember in The Knot Wedding Shop’s huge selection of favors and you can even personalize some of them.

If you prefer more traditional favors you might present your guests with beach themed candy like hard candy or chocolates(a cool storage space to prevent melting will be needed) shaped like sea shells, fish or beach balls or you could choose jelly beans or other candies in tropical flavors like coconut, lime and pineapple. There are lots of boxes, bags and wrappers available that have beach themes, or you could place in the candy in little miniature buckets like the white favor pail in the photo for a cute look in keeping with the beach theme.

Beach Wedding Food and Drink Ideas

Summer drinks and mixed fruit platters work very well for beach wedding food and drink. Mint iced tea, plain and flavored lemonades and tropical drinks like Pina Coladas are all summer favorites that would be appropriate at the beach. You can even go all out with a luau on the beach and incorporate some of these luau recipe ideas. A wedding cake that looks like a sandcastle made by covering the frosting with graham cracker crumbs to represent sand would be just classic for this occasion.

I hope this has given you some good beach wedding ideas and I know that whatever you choose your beach wedding will be uniquely yours.