A Bride, A Groom and A Beach

Bridal couples today often opt for a beach wedding.  This couple planned a beach wedding at the Jersey Shore where the beaches are wide and the cost isn't prohibitive.  No flying off to a destination in the Bahamas or Belize, this couple invited their family to Long Branch, New Jersey to join them on their special day. 

Erica posted her planning bio online and shared some of the creative invitations for wedding events with her readers.  Like any smart bride, she did some of her wedding using DIY projects, and got some help from family and friends to help pull the details together.  Her sister designed the invitations for the rehearsal dinner and pre-wedding party on the beach, her mom helped with some of her other projects. 

The invitation to the rehearsal dinner was printed by Vistaprint, a bride's best friend if she's trying to save some money on printing costs.  Face it, rehearsal dinner invites don't need to be engraved invitations, they just need to convey the who, what, when and where of the event.  This one added a bit of whimsy with it's 'poetry.'  The photo of the bride and groom walking across the sand personalized the invitations.

The bride and groom opted to have their rehearsal dinner before rehearsal and then move on to a pre-wedding bonfire that everyone was invited to.  What a nice touch!  The photo on the bonfire invitation was taken from the hotel's web site and again, this smart bride had Vistaprint do her printing.

I love the idea of having a bonfire for all the guests from out of town.  Erica said she put the invites into the 'out of town pails' and mailed them to local guests.  The invitations for the bonfire were printed on postcards, a smart bride! Saving the costs on envelopes and decreasing postage!

Another smart move this bride made was to give all the bridal party and her family a wedding day timeline (again one of her sister's designs, but now that you've seen how it's done you can probably duplicate it.) 

This way no one had to wonder where they were supposed to be when.  And if they lost their small card?  Erica had 2 larger posters printed up. One was hung in the room where the women were getting ready and one for the groom and his groomsmens' room.  Everyone was going to get where they needed to be on time for this wedding.

See the rest of Erica's Planning bio for more ideas on how she planned her wedding, with a little help.