Wed­dings on the seashore are some­thing most of us can eas­i­ly en­vi­sion-the bride's gauzy gown float­ing in the wind, the groom look­ing in­to her eyes and the ocean waves in the back­ground. Let's take a clos­er look at some of the plan­ning el­e­ments in­volved:

Lo­gis­tics

It may be con­sid­er­ate of you as a host to arrange trans­porta­tion for your guests and wed­ding sup­pli­ers. Will it be by boat, maxi taxi, bus or car pool? Re­mem­ber, too, that if you're hav­ing a wed­ding on a se­clud­ed beach or if it will be held in the late evening, guests may be con­cerned about se­cu­ri­ty for both them­selves and their ve­hi­cles. It may al­so be a good idea to in­clude a map of your venue, with­in your wed­ding in­vi­ta­tion.

Ameni­ties

Once your guests ar­rive they will re­quire re­strooms, seat­ing, garbage dis­pos­als and shady ar­eas out of the sun. A prac­ti­cal so­lu­tion may be to choose a ho­tel or venue which fea­tures a beach front. This way, guests can re­treat in­side to use ameni­ties, once you pay the req­ui­site fees to the venue. Once din­ing and danc­ing are go­ing to be on the agen­da, be sure to erect some sort of stur­dy floor­ing in those ar­eas to pre­vent guests' feet from sink­ing in­to the sand. Al­so re­mem­ber that you will have no elec­tric­i­ty, which may pose prob­lems for light­ing and sound, un­less this is planned for in ad­vance.

Choos­ing a tent­ed re­cep­tion venue

If it is not pos­si­ble to have your wed­ding near to a wa­ter­front ho­tel or venue, you may have to opt for a tent­ed re­cep­tion venue. These have the ad­van­tage of flex­i­bil­i­ty-a tent can be erect­ed al­most any­where (once per­mis­sion/a per­mit has been ob­tained). Tents al­so come in vary­ing sizes and styles and can ac­com­mo­date any num­ber of guests.

They will al­so work well dur­ing the dry sea­son. How­ev­er, you will have to cre­ate a com­fort­able en­vi­ron­ment un­der a tent. There­fore, you will have to think about rent­ing portable re­stroom fa­cil­i­ties, air-con­di­tion­ing/fans, ta­bles, chairs, a stage, dance floor, tent walls, in­stalling light­ing and pro­vid­ing cook­ing and elec­tri­cal fa­cil­i­ties for the cater­er and DJ.

Your bud­get may al­so in­crease, since dec­o­ra­tors may al­so have to get stur­dier de­sign el­e­ments rather than light-weight dec­o­ra­tions that would fly away or fall down with the breeze. Al­ter­na­tive­ly, you can go the af­ford­able "au nat­ur­al" way and use beach sand, sea shells, raf­fia, bas­kets and starfish as your d&ea­cute;cor!

Time of day

It may be more prac­ti­cal to have an ear­ly morn­ing or a late af­ter­noon wed­ding, since dur­ing the day, beach­es tend to be crowd­ed. Dur­ing the day, there is an in­creased chance of hav­ing cu­ri­ous on­look­ers in the back­ground of your wed­ding pho­tos and un­want­ed sounds on your wed­ding video. If you are hav­ing a wed­ding on the beach at night, re­mind your guests to bring warm cloth­ing since it may get chilly.

How to book a beach wed­ding lo­cal­ly?

De­pend­ing on which beach you choose, you may have to write the Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (TDC) and ask for per­mis­sion. Beach­es which re­quire per­mis­sion are: Mara­cas, Las Cuevas, Ves­signy and Man­zanil­la. Your let­ter must reach the TDC no lat­er than one month be­fore your wed­ding. There is a rental fee and a cau­tion fee to be paid and you will have to or­gan­ise a po­lice pres­ence, as well as no­ti­fy the Life­guard Ser­vices De­part­ment. Once per­fect­ly planned, beach wed­dings can go with­out a hitch. If these is­sues seem too much for you to han­dle, a good op­tion is to hire a wed­ding co-or­di­na­tor.