Planning a Beach House Wedding for Sept 2016 and getting overwhelmed!

pumkin829

Hello Knotties!
I recently got in engaged this past May and I instantly started planning our wedding for Sept 2016. I know, I know….I definitely have a lot of time but I wanted to start getting the “foundation” running.
Our vision is to rent a nice beach house and have a quick 20-30 minute ceremony on the beach (in front of the beach house) and then just have the reception at the house also. The vision is to have tables and chairs around the pool area and any extended patio space that may be available. I am well aware that there will be an “event fee” for this type of wedding. We plan to have anywhere from 50-75 people to actually show up (which is great for us because we are striving for a wedding budget close to $10k). We really wanted a beach house so that my family and his family can spend some time together because our families are a “perfect combination”.
I am now starting to realize that there are LOTS of logistics behind our wedding vision. Logistics such as not being able to reserve and confirm a beach house of our choosing until Sept of next year and transportation/shuttles for our guest. They all can’t park at the beach house. Another concern is that we do plan to play music or have a DJ. I know that there are rules to playing music after a certain time of the night (like at 9 pm or something {I’m not sure]). Another thought was….well we can have the wedding on the beach and then drive to another venue for the reception, however, our wedding is going to be around sunset time. That means that by the time the wedding is over and pictures have been taken…we aren’t going to get to the reception venue until maybe 8-8:30 at night. People will have to drive back home if they did not have plans to stay overnight. Based on all of the unknowns, I think that I have decided to hire a wedding coordinator for the majority of the wedding.
I’m just at a moment of the planning stages to rethink our vision. Any advice? Did anyone else have similar plans such as I have? FYI – I will be coming to the OBX Wedding Show in January.

Thanks for any help!

OBX2011

Hello and welcome! Planning a wedding involves a lot of time and sometimes even some hard decision making, but try not to get too overwhelmed and use a checklist to keep you on track of things. You have the advantage of being able to plan so far in advance, so take a timeout here and there to stay sane. It's great that you are going to the Expo as you'll get tons of information and possible even book some vendors. You can rent a beach house near public parking access, so that will help solve that problem. Most event homes will list that in the features or just call the rental company. Keep in mind that parking up North in Duck or Corolla will be much more limited than Kitty Hawk, Nags Head, etc., so picking which part of the island is important. Will they only allow you to pre-reserve next September or actually book it? I would pick a few of your top choice homes and ask the rental company how far in advance they would do a pre-reserve. Also, most companies will probably allow you to look at the homes while you're down there for the expo. I think the town ordinance for music is 11pm. Chamber of Commerce can answer that for you.....and probably give you the MP #'s for the public beach access, so that's a win win! What time exactly do you want your wedding? When I think of sunset, I think of like 730 or 800 during Sept. Would you be willing to compromise on the time if it meant you had the perfect venue? Just to give you an idea of our timeline: Our ceremony was on the beach at 430 with cocktail & reception at 108 Budleigh in Manteo starting at 530. Our ceremony lasted about 20 minutes and then a 15 min ride to Manteo. The reception ended at 11pm due to town ordinance, but it was the perfect amount of time to get everything in and not feel rushed. Most of your guests will be staying overnight, I'm sure of it. Being at the beach for a wedding in Sept is a perfect weekend escape for people. A lot of out friends and family jokingly thanked us for getting married at the beach so they could have a weekend away. You can block off rooms at hotels and get a discount for your guests. I would hang tight on hiring a coordinator yet until you and FI can have a chance to decide what you really want and most importantly, what fits your budget. I would honestly wait to do that until after the expo, bc,you may find that you don't need one after all. We did everything ourselves and it was gret, other brides have bad a coordinator for the entire wedding and some only a day of coordinator to make sure things go smoothly......which they will . P.S. A coordinator means extra money spent, so keep that in mind too. My advice is to not make any big decisions as far as vendors until you've gone to the expo. Seeing things in person can be a lot different than online, especially rental homes. Between now and then, get a list of event homes and venues you want to see while you're at the expo. We went down Friday morning and just enjoyed our day around town, did the open house tour Sat and the cocktail party Sat night (great way to taste test lots of caterers) and the expo on Sunday. Also, keep going through the different topics on this board bc there is a lot of helpful info you'll find. A huge group of us were married from 2011 to recently, so there is all sorts of stuff. I hope this helps you a bit and let us know if you have any questions. More than happy to help Did this on my IPad so forgive any formatting or spelling errors

pumkin829

Your response was super awesome!  I hadn't event thought about trying to find a home near public access parking.  We are more decided on planning the wedding near Nags Head, Kill Devil or Kitty Hawk because of the activites, restaurants, and more to do around those areas.  I've also heard that traffic is sometimes horribel going to Corolla and/or Duck.

The time that we want to get married is at sunset.  So yes I can compromise on that.  My FI really has his heart set on the sunset view during the wedding.

 

I agree with you as far as the coordinator.  At first, I was going to do this on my own but then I started getting overwhelmed with the logistics and I started to think about how I probably need someone who was more familiar with the "workings of the OBX" .  But at this point I will continue doing it on our own and definitly take your advice. 

If you don't mind, how many people did you all invite and how many people came?  If you could do anything different as far as your wedding, what would it be and why?

Sorry for "interviewing" you but I loce the opportunity to gauge others views

OBX2011

We invited 120 and 96 came. What would I do different? Our wedding was on the Friday after we checked in the previous Sat, and while it was a great week, it was stressful. Looking back, I would've had the wedding on a sat or Sun even, so we could've had the rest of the week to relax without all of the stress. Basically, the wedding at the beginning of the week instead of the end. Consider this for the sunset wedding.....would you rather have the sunset view for one evening during your vows or tons of awesome sunset photos for years to come? I'm not trying to talk you out of what you really want, but having a wedding later in the evening, doesn't leave a lot of time for celebrating.....or enough light for great pictures. It also pushes cocktail hour and dinner back to 830 or 900 by the time you are done with photos. Just want to make sure you get the most out of your wedding day Feel free to ask as many questions a a you want.....that's what we are here for. P.S. Damn paragraphs!!

ksj10032782

Hi- my husband and I got married Sept. 7, 2012 at the Sanderling under their elopement package. Our ceremony was at 6:30 on the beach, cocktail hour from 7-8 and dinner was served around 8:15. We didn't have children or elderly that made a concern for us to have dinner later, and there were plenty of appetizers for everyone to eat. The weather was pretty cloudy and we had rain move through though so we never really got sunset photos. Our wedding was a Friday, we checked in the previous Sunday.

doceri

Hi!  I got married in July 2013 on a Tuesday and having the wedding early in the week was definitely a great decision as I was definitely feeling stressed until we got married!  The rest of the week flew by so yes I would get married as early in the week as possible.  I too wanted sunset pictures but being that sun sets almost at 9 PM in the summer we didn't do our ceremony then.  We took pictures prior to the ceremony, after ceremony, and while guests were eating the first course we snuck out with the photographers to take sunset pictures (those were also super important to me).  I agree with OBX above regarding you need time for your pictures so to sneak out later to take those sunset pictures will be your best bet.

I originally wanted a wedding at a beach house but after going down and looking it appeared for me personally that I did not want to deal with all the logistics of having it at the house, plus pictures are very different than real life which you will find out quickly when looking at houses!

For renting a house we knew the house we wanted and pretty much planned our wedding date based on the week we were able to rent the house!  We rented Take it to the Limit from Village Realty and we could have had the wedding there but chose not to.  Seriously the house was amazing and we had about 30 people staying in the house together. 

The only thing I would change for my actual wedding day is I wish I would have paid for a day of coordinator.  My hair dresser ended up running late which pushed almost everything back an hour.  The hairdresser knew exactly how many girls were going to get done so it sort of annoyed me that they didn't come earlier even but I am sure having the coordinator she would have advised that they should have come even earlier than they did just to be safe.  Also, my wedding favors ended up not showing up that day and again no one was totally focused on that so I am sure that the coordinator would have noticed such a thing (in the end it wasn't the end of the world as we had a bbq the next day and I gave them out then - since the company had the dates mixed up on their calendar but still!).  In the end those things didn't make a difference in my day but it would have been nice if things played out differently!

Anywho, enough rambling from me! I hope this helps!  Let me know if you have any more questions!

Paigepars

Got maried June 2014 at Croatan Ridge and agree with all the good advice you've gotten above. 

Croatan Ridge is the one house we found that would let you reserve more than 1 year in advance and yes we toured it while at the expo although it was not part of the open house.

We had a Monday wedding after checking in Sunday and it was the best decision we made. Left the rest of the week to enjoy that FABULOUS house and pool with family. We also rented "Sushi" two doors down for overflow guests... so had 34 in all for the week. 75 guests in all for the wedding. Those not staying in our 2 houses stayed in local hotels and we had van shuttle for the evening.

I agree with previous advice that you can still have fabulous sunset pictures even you have the ceremony earlier. We had 6:00 ceremony on the pool deck, the cocktail, dinner and dancing.

I originally thought I'd want and wedding coordinator, but selected most vendors from the Expo and ended up doing it myself. I have vendor reviews at previous post.

pumkin829

@OBX2011...The way that you did your wedding was pretty much what I was envisioning.  I was gong to get a house that had a Sunday to Sunday rental and then have the wedding on the Friday before we leave.  But everyone brought up great points about having the wedding early in the week.  My strategy was to have the wedding on Friday in order to keep my headcount down.  I know it sounds bad, but I am really trying to keep the cost down as much as possible (I'm sure just like everyone else).  I definitely do NOT want to have the wedding on Saturday or Sunday because of headcount concerns.  I really didn't think about the potential stress of having the wedding at the end of the week versus the beginning.  Something I need to think about.  As it relates to the sunset...we can definitely have the wedding earlier in the evening instead of waiting until the sunset.  We can just take pictures when the sunset starts and then go back and enjoy the party.

pumkin829

doceri  so if you opted out of having your wedding at a beach house...where did you end up having your wedding?

pumkin829

@paigepars  --- OMG....That house if phenomenal.  I've never seen or heard of that house until your post.  My FI and I have fallen in love.  Now here is the depressing part.  I went to the Outer Banks this past weekend for a Girls Retreat with my friends and we actually did a cake tasting for fun and I told the vendor that I was thinking about having the wedding at Croatan Ridge and pretty much told us that the bridge that connects Buxton/Hatteras closes for everything weather related.  If the wind is blowing more than 30 MPH, then they will shut down the access bridge.  So she kind of got me depressed and she gave me her disclaimer that she was not trying to talk me out of it...but she definitely seemed like an honest person and I appreciated her honesty.  So much to think about.  

doceri

We ended up having our wedding at The Currituck Club, which I do not regret one bit.  We had our ceremony sound front and our reception outside under the veranda.  We took pictures before hand at The Whalehead Club and at the beach.  We took our engagement pictures in Manteo near the lighthouse and on the beach at Jennette's Pier as I loved that area!

Our house was plenty big to have the wedding at but we had a wonderful time at TCC.  I have a post on the blog about my wedding - I think I posted in August or September 2013.  I will say looking back being that we were in Nags Head for the week and we had our wedding up in Corolla it was a bit of a hike (but not terrible) - the only other place I considered was Jennette's Pier but having hard alcohol at the wedding was a must have for my husband's family so we took that out of the running. 

Let me know if you have any other questions!

OBX2011

I'm pretty sure that most of us would agree that even if we choose a Sat or Sun, our head count wouldn't have really changed that much. Your guests love you and want to be there to celebrate this day with you, so they'll find a way. Especially if it means a long weekend at the beach. The general rule is that 70% of invited guests will show up, but always prepare for 100%. If you haven't already, make a guest list to get a general idea of your head count. We knew we only wanted he closest of the close at our wedding, otherwise we would've ended up with over 200 people, easily. Your invites will not go out until 6-8 weeks before the big day, so you have some time to plan and prepare for your final head count. Also, since it is a destination wedding, save the dates are a really really good idea and send your invites at the 8 week mark, since guests will have to make travel arrangements, request time off work, etc.

OBX2011

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pumkin829

Now you have mail @OBX2011