Beach Wedding Help/Advice (dress & sinking into the sand)

br0wneyeddoll

It was always a dream of mine to have a simple, beautiful beach wedding.  and it looks like it can be coming true.  but, now that it's a possibility, i'm seeing two main issues with having a ceremony on the beach:

1 -the dress getting dirty - how do brides keep that from happening?
2-  sinking into the sand - we'd rather not have us our our guests go barefoot as we're all going to need shoes at the reception anyway, but do you guys have any suggestions/ideas on how to keep from sinking into the sand?

Any other helpful tips would be greatly appreciated, too.  Looking forward to your great ideas!  Thanks Knotties!!!  And congrats to all of you!!!!!!!!!!!

hh581842

well, when i think of a "beach bride" I think carefree, relaxed, and low maintenance.  And i think that's what you're going to have to be if you're going to have a beach wedding. you're essentially getting married in dirt lol so yeah, the bottom of your dress may get a little dirty, and you just have to let it go. It will be fine

Some options though that i can think of are maybe getting a tea-length dress, then it won't be an issue at all.  Or, if your wedding is more casual, you can wear flats (sandals) and have your dress altered to the correct length so that when you're wearing the flats, your dress won't drag on the ground at all.  Other than that, you would just have to be really careful, have someone hold the train of your dress as you walk down the aisle and then place it carefully on top of the sand once you get to the "alter." Or, here's an idea--you know a red carpet?  what if you had some kind of aisle runner in your wedding color going down the aisle and another running along the front of all the chairs where you will stand as you say your vows?  you could at least lessen the amount of sand your dress will come in contact with.  You could put all kinds of flower petals in your colors on/along the runner too and tie it in with your other floral arrangements at the ceremony.

As for the shoes, some things i've seen are that everyone takes off their shoes before entering the ceremony area, and the bride has provided a table or somewhere for guests to line up their shoes.  Then, there are flip flops provided for all the guests.  That way, no one gets sand in their shoes, and they don't have to go barefoot!

This is getting really long lol.  Here's one more thing to consider.  I want the beach in the background, but I don't want to be on the beach, so I want to get married on a cliff overlooking the beach.  Does that interest you? look up The Wedding Bowl (La Jolla) and Sea Grove Park (Del Mar).  These are parks where you can have a ceremony overlooking the ocean.  There are a ton more in San Diego btw I just can't think of them all off the top of my head.  Wedding Bowl is for a smaller wedding, Seagrove you can have up to 200 guests I think.

Hope this helps!
~Heidi

hh581842

ooo! I just randomly found a photo of what i was talking about, but i can' t paste the photo here. Go to Melissa Mclure's website, she's a SD photographer. Then go to Melissa's images, then Ceremony (at the top).  About 4 photos down there's a beach wedding with a big blue aisle runner! free of sand btw

CandSU2010

I guessing you already have a location picked out and I don't know if this would be allowed or not but you could grab all the rocks and pebbles you can find on the surrounding areas and make an aisle out or them obviously wearing heels would be out and you'd probably have to have it done a day or so before (how many groomsmen do you have?) but it might keep your dress clean and it could look really cool too. As far as the barefoot thing the only I dea I know of is providing flip flops to your guest to change into which works as your wedding favor too

br0wneyeddoll

Wow!  Thanks guys!!!  You two fellow Knotties had some great advice!  I'll definitely check out Melissa McClure's website, as well!  THanks for helping me feel better about getting married on the beach again!