As you may know, my now husband and I met in Surf City on Long Beach Island, New Jersey eight
years ago. Our parents own beach houses across the street from one another, so
I guess you can say I was the girl next door. A year and half ago, just after
Hurricane Sandy had ravaged our beloved island, he proposed to me on our
beach while on a visit from our home in Virginia to help our families assess
the damage and clear out my house to be gutted. Just minutes after becoming
engaged, we knew there was nowhere else we could marry except on Long Beach
Island — where our love story began.
The timing of our wedding was very important to us. He
was graduating from medical school in Virginia and we wanted our wedding soon after so we
could take our honeymoon to the Maldives and Dubai before starting his
residency in dermatology. With a very
busy wedding season already heating up a year and half out, we were very
fortunate to secure the Brant Beach Yacht Club to hold both our ceremony and reception
overlooking the beautiful bay in late spring.
We wanted to give our friends — many who had never been to
Long Beach Island and were traveling from far away — a little taste of what the
Jersey Shore is really like and not what they’ve seen on TV. My mother and I set off to DIY nearly every
aspect of our wedding to make it a true reflection of our love of Long Beach
Island.
Since I have a background in marketing and public relations, I have
dabbled a bit in graphic design and thought I'd put what I'd learn to good use and set about creating all of our invitations, signs, menus,
programs, table name banners and escort cards.
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| The invitation suite I created in addition to the engagement party invitation and Save the Date |
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| I created double-sided thank you/menus and programs |
I started with a seaplane and
banner, which is a common sight when you’re laying on the beach in New Jersey,
and used it throughout the invitation suite. For the reception, I constructed
actual toy planes and banners with the name of each town on the island. These
were strung up above each table to look as though they were actually flying.
Guests found their tables using personalized beach badges — another detail
unique to the Jersey Shore — with the name of the town/table on them.
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| Beach badges were used as escort cards |
Our
sweetheart table was named after Ocean Beach in San Francisco where we will be
moving to for Brian to complete his residency.
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| Our sweetheart table with the special Ocean Beach banner for our upcoming move to San Francisco |
We started with a muted color palette with gray and beige
tones that you find in nature like in the driftwood and shells we used and then
added some pops of color with coral and turquoise throughout. The centerpieces we
put together using galvanized and rope lanterns surrounded by handmade nautical
rope wrapped mason jars filled with hydrangeas and baby’s breath. Votive candles
and shells were also added.
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| The tables at our reception |
The entire yacht club — both inside and out— was transformed
through the use of tulle, burlap, driftwood, oyster shells, baby’s breath,
starfish and shells.
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| Just a sampling of the shell accents from our wedding |
Other DIY elements included: the shell and driftwood bouquets
for the bridesmaids and me; the boutonnieres for Brian, the groomsmen, our
fathers and ring bearer; the ring bearer’s sign; the flower girl’s bucket; the
“B & B” shell letters; driftwood frames; oyster shell garland; and more.
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| A few of the DIY elements we tackled for the wedding |
We did a “first look” on the beach before the ceremony. I am
so happy we did this since we were able to knock out all of the wedding party
and family photos and truly enjoy the extended cocktail hour with our guests.
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| Our "first look" on the beach |
The party got started early with a bellini bar set up prior to the ceremony for
guests to have drinks and be able to toast us once we were married. Surely this
helped turn our wedding into one of the most epic dance parties I’ve ever been
to — and that was before anyone sat down to eat their salads!
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| A bellini bar for guests to quench their thirst before and during the ceremony |
May 30 will be a day we will never forget. Having
all of our different groups of friends and family all together in one place for
an entire weekend was the most cherished part. We could never thank everyone
enough for all of their love and support throughout the wedding process and our
lives, but we’d expressly like to thank both our families — especially my mom
and my sister — for all of their help, our
caterer Joe Dringus of Touch of Elegance Catering for making food that people
are still raving about and our photographer Ann Coen for giving us beautiful
images we will cherish for a lifetime.
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| Just a few of my favorite shots from the beach beforehand (above) and the ceremony/reception (below) |
