Home base for Lauren Daversa Events is the beautiful beach town of Jupiter, Florida and it is truly is gorgeous here. How gorgeous? Well, enough to make a die hard New Yorker decide to call somewhere else home! How did I make the switch? Well, Jupiter is just a fabulous location. But besides being picturesque, I am a hop skip and a jump away from the beach, just a few miles north of historic Palm Beach, about an hour north of Miami and a two hour flight from my hometown - and site of our new sister office, New York City! See, Jupiter is the perfect location, and not only for family and business but also for a beach wedding!!!
Lauren Daversa Events gets all sorts of interesting inquiries from around the United States from brides looking for help to organize their dream beach-side nuptials. I have to be honest, a lot of these brides have quite a few misconceptions about the logistics involved in a south Florida beach wedding. So many in fact, I am going to share them with you in hopes of debunking these myths / fantasies / delusions.
For the most part, the confusion comes from this idea that a beach wedding is somehow easier to plan and a less inexpensive route to take versus a resort, hotel, or private estate. And I guess in the most basic way sure, it can be. If you have a very small group (I mean ten, maybe twenty, definitely pushing it with thirty). But when I get calls from brides who have $5K dollars for their budget and are trying to plan a "simple" beach wedding for 150 people, I am grinning on the other end of the phone like the Cheshire Cat.
Soooooooo, where to start with beach weddings? For now, in the middle with something out of all of our control: The Wind. Yes, as a planner I can plan for everything except what Mother Nature is going to do. And when she unleashes her gusty winds, well she goes and changes your serene beach wedding to a carnival of swirly-whirly.
East coast beaches are not shielded from the wind, and wind generally means cold. Now with Florida being the Sunshine State and all, no, it does not get super cold here. But don't let that mislead you. Sitting by the beach when it's windy, is cold enough. Add gusty wind and that equals cold guests, cold wedding party, and most importantly, a cold bride! This can be fixed by tying pashminas around the back of the ceremony or reception chairs - have them do double duty as ceremony decor, and then wrapping the bridal party up in coordinating throws. Easy fix ;-)
But gusty winds also means that the beautiful programs you stayed up for three days to hand make and place on the seats, will probably blow straight into the Atlantic. Easy fix - you can just incorporate starfish as a paper weight to keep the programs on each seat! Let's kick it up a notch - yay Emeril.
Gusty wind means the flowers, chuppah, draping, dangling crystals, candles, rose petals, aisle runner, your hair, your veil and a whole list of other things will be blowing around every which way. See where this is going. Okay, not on board yet? How about this, sound. Yup, I typed sound. And sound is an issue at any event - inside or outside - but sound is a big issue when you're by the ocean. You see the beautiful, crashing waves and wide, open space will literally soak up the melodies that beautiful quartet you hired are playing. Or, they will soak up the romantic sounds from the Spanish guitar player who is passionately strumming as your walk down the aisle. Yeah, no one can hear the quartet, or the guitar player, or the officiant, or you and your fiancé for that matter while you are exchanging vows. Ahhh, you're getting it!
Gusty wind means the flowers, chuppah, draping, dangling crystals, candles, rose petals, aisle runner, your hair, your veil and a whole list of other things will be blowing around every which way. See where this is going. Okay, not on board yet? How about this, sound. Yup, I typed sound. And sound is an issue at any event - inside or outside - but sound is a big issue when you're by the ocean. You see the beautiful, crashing waves and wide, open space will literally soak up the melodies that beautiful quartet you hired are playing. Or, they will soak up the romantic sounds from the Spanish guitar player who is passionately strumming as your walk down the aisle. Yeah, no one can hear the quartet, or the guitar player, or the officiant, or you and your fiancé for that matter while you are exchanging vows. Ahhh, you're getting it!
Now, I am not saying it is impossible to plan a beach wedding - not at all. I happen to think oceanside weddings are absolutely romantic and I love to plan them. What I want you take from this is that it is never as simple as it seems. There is a lot of preparation that goes into orchestrating any wedding; when you take it outside, you need to be even more prepared. In order to be properly prepared, it takes knowledge and experience.
What I've touched upon above are like four what if scenarios. Literally, it is simply what came off the top of my head. But they are four of many, many, many reasons why you need to hire a professional -ehem, Lauren Daversa Events- to bring your fantasy oceanside wedding to reality. If you can't enlist the help of a professional and you are planning a beach wedding, know this:
- Be prepared. Be overly prepared.
- There is absolutely no way of knowing twelve or fourteen months out what the weather will be like on your wedding day. Truth be told, the weather can change by the hour, which is why you need to be overly prepared!
- Always, always, always have a back up location, preferably indoors. If your budget permits, and you are allowed, get a tent. Seriously, go for it!
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