<p>Congrats, Garland! I will second what many have said to emphasize that I hope you take time to smile, breathe and ENJOY this experience with your daughter! And always remember, it’s the marriage that is important—the wedding just makes that happen. So, at the end of that beautiful day, if they are married, you have succeeded! :)</p>
<p>Congrats to you and your daughter ! I just tried to imagine wedding spots here in Cape May County near beach , with shelter…</p>
<p>I agree-get the best photographer you can afford. Depending on HOW casual she wants it, maybe a city park near the beach for the dance/party (depends on liquor laws, etc. though). You could have it catered by a local restaurant and if you keep it simple, won’t cost your your entire retirement savings :D.</p>
<p>Pinterest is a GREAT idea for inspiration!!</p>
<p>Garland,</p>
<p>Mazal tov! So excited for you!</p>
<p>My son and DIL had a beautiful wedding in a lovely garden/ courtyard at an estate outside of Boston a couple of years ago…</p>
<p>It had rained every day for WEEKS before their wedding…the weekend of their wedding the weather was glorious…and after that weekend the endless rain returned. So they were really worried about having to move their wedding indoors up til the day before the wedding. It was a good thing that their venue had the capacity to move the wedding indoors if necessary, even though they did not end up needing to do so.</p>
<p>We had no photographer or videographer. But we did have a live band. 
</p>
<p>It is important to decide which elements are more important to you and the couple than others.</p>
<p>In your situation, the first thing I would look for is the venue. In our area, for example, there is an attractive large public shelter in a public park with spectacular views overlooking the ocean that can be rented. That kind of thing might be perfect for you. It would most likely come with ample parking and possibly even restrooms. Another advantage would be that it would NOT be likely to have a catering agreement with a single provider, something that locks you into a major expense at many venues.</p>
<p>Another alternative would be renting a tent to be erected in a suitable spot.</p>
<p>Just remember that outdoor weddings always seem idyllic…as long as the weather cooperates. :)</p>
<p>I had a dream that my D came home and told me that she and her BF were getting married in my yard the next day (in November at 50 degrees). She had not reserved tables, chairs, photographer, band, food, etc but HAD managed to invite 150 people. In the dream, when I started to panic she told me to just CALM DOWN and that I was making a BIG DEAL out of it! Lol!</p>
<p>When I woke up, it took my heart about ten minutes to get back to a normal rhythm.</p>
<p>Congrats, Garland! Five months seems like a long time to me to plan!</p>
<p>I like the suggestion of parks or beach club. You can rent a tent and can hire your catering to control costs. Tables, chairs, dishes,silverware, glasses can all be rented, delivered and picked up. I have been to several weddings like this the past couple years and they were lovely and fun simply because they weren’t “production” weddings.Put the groom and bride in charge of bartenders if you are going to have a bar. Many kids know someone who is a good photograher and most friends love to be involved in a wedding.</p>
<p>Mazel Tov, Garland!!</p>
<p>Awesome news. A beach wedding before the heat of the summer should be lovely. In planning you need to see what the options would be if it ends up raining. My college roommate’s son and fiance planned an outdoor beach wedding at a lovely spot, Crescent Beach Club on the North Shore of Long Island in Bayviille, ended up a very stormy night in June and so ceremony had to be moved into what was essentially the cocktail room outside the banquet room. It was a lovely ceremony but the room was not what bride and groom had planned or hoped for. Guests also had to wait crowded in waiting area while room was reset with seating for ceremony.
Have also been guests at outdoor weddings at south shore of Long Island, inn at Hunter Mountain ski lodge, Central Park Boathouse restaurant and Brooklyn Botanic Gardens where it was unseasonably hot and humid or in the last one at Brooklyn, the most perfect night ever for a July wedding, not hot and humid. Just outside police siren noise during the ceremony but not a big deal.
Also … was at the beach on a regular summer day… and witnessed an outdoor wedding what included bride and groom and friends and guests gathering so did not feel polite to be packing up our umbrella and stuff during their ceremony.</p>
<p>Garland,
First, best wishes to your D and her intended! This will be a joyful time for you all. :)</p>
<p>I too am a MOB in planning mode. My D’s wedding will take place in Boston in September. (That is where the couple met, courted, and will make their home.) They wanted an outdoor wedding and are getting married on the grounds of the Boston Museum of Science, which is right along the Charles River. There is a roofed pavilion there where the ceremony will be held. A large tent will be set up for the reception, and if the weather is good, the sides will be up.</p>
<p>I think it saves a lot of stress if, for an outdoor wedding, there is a backup indoor arrangement that the couple feels good about just in case weather is an issue.</p>
<p>D wants to avoid being a “bridezilla” and so far she and her fiance are planning something that they hope will be gracious but low key. They have also vowed to limit wedding planning to 10% of their conversation during their engagement year. Every now and then when we are together talking wedding stuff I remind them to watch out, that we are getting close to the cutoff. 
D got the book “A Practical Wedding” and there is a website associated with it (words without spaces, then dot and com).</p>
<p>A Practical Wedding: Creative Solutions for Planning a Beautiful, Affordable, and Meaningful Celebration</p>
<p>They knew the site they wanted early on – had been boating on the river when they came upon a wedding in process there and were taken with the idea. </p>
<p>Once you have the date and site pinned down you can relax a bit. To get a number for the guest list, the bride and groom and both sets of parents made up “A” (REALLY want to have invited), “B” (would like invited) and “C” (if there is room would be nice to invite) lists. They made a spreadsheet and got a pretty good idea of the number they would be working with.</p>
<p>The menu has been determined. A friend of theirs who does this as a side business is doing the flowers.</p>
<p>But they do not yet have a photographer or music, etc. set up.</p>
<p>They are not having a wedding cake. 
But neither cares for cake and instead have planned a special dessert that is meaningful to them. (Groom made it for D the night he proposed.) I regret there will not be a pretty cake on display but this is what they want and as someone said, no tradition is a must do. Every couple should do what is in tune with them.</p>
<p>D will not wear a veil or toss her bouquet as she finds those traditions politically incorrect. She will wear flowers in her hair. </p>
<p>I was married in May and think it is a beautiful month for a wedding – flowers at their best.</p>
<p>ENJOY!</p>
<p>I didn’t want a wedding cake either, but mainly because we were cutting costs & I dont like cake. But one of H’s coworkers made one for us which I thought was very kind. We also had his sister take the photos but since his family didn’t care for me, and she only took a few, ( & none with the wedding party all together), that probably wasn’t the best idea. ( she did get ones of my sister who was maid of honor and my grandfather who gave me away, separately, but I would have liked one with my mother for instance)</p>
<p>I think it would be fun to ask say, ten friends to take ten candid pics each though.( along with hiring at least a photography student)</p>
<p>I think it depends on what kind of flowers you like, for when they are in season. That can make things cheaper or more expensive, depending if they have to be greenhouse grown.</p>
<p>We had a very tight budget ($1000 for everything), I made our invitations ( which I think would be much easier now).
I bought the first dress off the rack that fit me that could pass for a wedding dress( Jessica McKlintock was very big in 1981), I only had a maid of honor as I felt silly having a lot of bridesmaids for a small guest list. ( also, I didn’t really want some of Hs friends in wedding party as matching groomsmen. :o - I think that was the main reason- I just realized that!)</p>
<p>I dont know if I have shared anything helpful. Serve food that can be eaten standing up & that doesn’t stain.
It sounds like perhaps the reception will be immediately following the wedding on the beach?
Sounds fun!</p>
<p>Garland, congrats to you and your family! A beach wedding sounds wonderful. </p>
<p>One note about public venues (or other locations that do not have dedicated catering): we found many, many places that required that a <em>licensed</em> caterer be used at their facility. Even if the venue was inexpensive, this still drove the price way up. </p>
<p>We found three places in our area that allow for self-catering/pot luck. (One was a conference center at a campground, one was a firehouse’s rec building, and the other was a county-owned arts center). S and DIL grabbed the arts facility and they will have their shindig there. We have helped with catering there for a non-profit we were involved with, so are very familiar with the place. </p>
<p>Also found that some caterers required licensed bartenders on site, charging for 2 bartenders @ $50/hr. x 5 hours – for pouring a glass of wine with dinner. This would be fine if they were having an open bar, but… Happily the place S & DIL found will let us have wine bottles at the tables and will not require bartenders.</p>
<p>JEM, will PM you!</p>
<p>Congratulations! If event-planning gives you hives, you may want to consider a restaurant as a venue for the reception. It is generally a more cost-effective option because you avoid the expensive rental fees and the space generally needs no additions to provide a lovely ambiance. If you go with the restaurant’s usual linens, flowers, chairs, etc the event is often more elegant, less expensive and easier to plan. The most difficult events IMHO are tented events in public places. The expenses add up very quickly.</p>
<p>You guys are the best. We have a restaurant under consideration, though I also found a place that does a tent on the beach, but I think it’s probably out of my walletsphere.</p>
<p>It did occur to me that I live next door to a major destionation wedding city, and that apparently there are loads of businesses who would like to make this happen for me, for a small fee (or fortune) of course.</p>
<p>I’m sifting through all the commetns above for guidance–many many thanks!</p>
<p>The best way to save money is to stay away from the sit-down meal. We had finger sandwiches, and cake, punch, beer and champagne. What fun it would be to do a beach version of that! Remember, it’s a party! If it is truly on the beach you could have frisbees imprinted with the bride and groom’s name as favors, have some beach games, and volley ball. Get your husband involved. My father planned most of my wedding in about 7 weeks. Once I picked the date, he picked the venue and the caterer. I sometimes think that is because he had almost no input into his own wedding!</p>
<p>Garland,</p>
<p>First off - Congrats!!!</p>
<p>Second - I’m just now seeing your post and would like to comment (but FYI, I have not read all of the comments). My H and & I had two of our children get married just recently (2 weddings in 10 1/2 months! And we are also in NJ) and we hosted both of them. What we did was we told the couple that we were giving them X amount of money and they could spend it however they wanted. If they came in under budget, then they could keep the rest. If they went over budget, then they would pay for that amount from their own savings. Both couples were happy with this arrangement and both came in under budget. </p>
<p>So, as a result of this arrangement, I did not do all that much of the wedding planning. I did suggest one reception hall which was eventually selected by both couples, did some of the shopping for table decorations and of course, I got to go bridal dress shopping but that was about it. They worked wiith the pastor, secured the place where the wedding took place, handled the invitations. flowers, decorations, etc. </p>
<p>I would encourage you to let the couple do the planning. It’s their day so let them own it. If they have a budget to work with, they can decide what is most important to them - which is an important life skill to develop. </p>
<p>Enjoy this time as it will pass very quickly.
PM me if you have any specific NJ questions. We are north of the shore area so I"m not sure if the places we used will be useful to you.</p>
<p>Dont forget kites!
( I agree to let the couple do the planning, even if you need to do the small details)
[Lauren</a> & Jeff’s Whimsical Kite Wedding // Hostess with the Mostess®](<a href=“http://blog.hwtm.com/2011/05/lauren-jeffs-whimsical-kite-wedding/]Lauren”>http://blog.hwtm.com/2011/05/lauren-jeffs-whimsical-kite-wedding/)</p>
<p>Congrats!</p>
<p>I’ve helped with a couple of weddings recently, including one on the beach. I’d start with some sort of head count, then find a location. Everything else flows from there. </p>
<p>The beach wedding used glass goldfish shaped bowls with colored rocks and a single flower. They thought about putting actual goldfish in the bowls, but who would adopt them all after the wedding was a concern. I think any large glass bowl with rocks, shells and a single floating flower could be used.
The other wedding used manzanita(sp) branches with photos of the couple growing up tied on them. It was really personal, and the bride is very into photography. (They were two sided–one would be the bride as a child at Halloween, the reverse was the groom.) There were candles in hanging holders on the branches as well, we used led tealights from Michael’s.</p>
<p>Another wedding reception I helped with used invitations from Michael’s, they carry a line from Brides magazine, some from Martha Stewart and Gartner as well. The FOB used a font he found online and printed them in a gray color. They really looked nice. And we bought them on clearance, so they were very inexpensive. We used flowers from Trader Joe’s on the tables (mini rose plants). And giant tissue paper poufs tied in the trees for color and fun (Martha Stewart crafts has a tutorial on those).</p>
<p>Our D got her wedding invites at Target and printed them all herself using her computer. She scanned (? copied? don’t know how) the flowers on it and used that on invites, place cards, church programs. I have no idea how she did it, but it looked great.</p>
<p>Mom2M – on her tables, we used big round glass bowls; we had dark gray pebbles in the bottom; filled with water, and one lily floating in them (she carried lilies because that’s the first flower our SIL gave her). We borrowed the bowls from a friend; got the pebbles at Michaels. Florist put them together. Simple, and beautiful.</p>
<p>Surrounded them with votives we got at Ikea. (Caterers lit the candles, I have no idea when but when it got dark). We rented white table cloths, but bought colored toppers on line.</p>
<p>All this was in my parents’ front yard – so we did a fair amount ourselves, but kept it pretty simple all around …</p>
<p>Congrats! Here’s the book you really need:</p>
<p>[Planning</a> Your Wedding Sucks: What to do when place cards, plus ones, and paying two grand for a cake make you miserable](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Planning-Your-Wedding-Sucks-miserable/dp/B005GNLUVY/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1356993164&sr=1-1&keywords=planning+your+wedding+sucks]Planning”>http://www.amazon.com/Planning-Your-Wedding-Sucks-miserable/dp/B005GNLUVY/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1356993164&sr=1-1&keywords=planning+your+wedding+sucks)</p>
<p>I bought it for my sister-in-law, who got married in October. She said it helped keep her from going insane!</p>
<p>Congratulations Garland!</p>
<p>My advice is to definitely find an event (wedding) planner! I used one for an event that I had to plan once. I did not know where to start. A friend put me in touch with an event planner and that was what I definitely needed! BTW, the event planner did not charge me directly. She made her money from a % of everyone hired through her and the people we hired were quite reasonable as far as pricing. I could never have done better on my own.</p>