Bring the Beach to your Wedding

If you have travelled all the way to Thailand in search of the perfect beach wedding, it's important to bring as much of the sun, sea and sand into your celebrations as possible.

If you are lucky enough to be celebrating your wedding day within the exclusive surroundings of one of Thailand’s private beachfront villas, then you are blessed with myriad ways to bring the beautiful coastal environment into your wedding theme.

For brides and grooms-to-be who enjoy getting creative, a simple selection of locally sourced materials can be used to re-vamp the décor so that it fully reflects the seaside location. Your wedding planner can help your ideas come to life without having to hire a professional set designer.

Below are five ideas to help you bring more of the beach into your tropical wedding.

Rustic Ceremony

A wedding arch at the top of the aisle sets a striking focal point for your wedding photographs – particularly if you are saying your vows with the ocean as your backdrop. To achieve a rustic 'beachy' look, construct your wedding arch with natural bamboo that has been sourced from the local area. Not only is it strong, but it is also a good material for brides and grooms that want to keep things green. To increase the beachside vibe even more, string a few flower garlands from the arch and incorporate shells and starfish if you wish.

Beachy Bouquet

If flowers aren’t for you, then why not add some texture to your bouquet by collecting in a few shells from the local beach? Not only does this create a striking bouquet, but if you find shells on the beach where you actually plan to celebrate your wedding in advance of the big day, it adds an extra personal touch. Bridesmaids can also carry their own shell-themed bouquets, and it can be a lot of fun making them with your favourite ladies in advance of the celebrations. (To find out how, follow the Martha Stewart Weddings shell bouquet tutorial online).

Burlap and Bunting

If rustic beach decorations float your boat more than fairy lights and elegant florals, then look no further for your chair sash ideas. Burlap is a great material for brides and grooms in search of that effortless, beach-chic look. For a simple chair sash, cut and tie and piece of burlap around each guest’s wedding chair. Then, secure a pretty shell or starfish to the back of each one using coloured string. Another way to dress up chairs in a beachy way is to make your own burlap bunting. Painting a starfish shape onto each flag of the bunting will create the added attention to detail you need for your personalized theme.

Guestbook to Remember

In addition to photographs, guest books are a great way for the bride and groom to enjoy their wonderful wedding memories for years to come. However, once you are back home from Thailand, a heavy wedding book with pages and pages of notes from guests may rarely get opened and enjoyed. As such, beachy brides and grooms can make the sentiments of their guests a permanent decorative feature in their home by having wish pebbles instead of the traditional paper book. In advance of the wedding, simply collect a bucket of pebbles from the beach (or buy them) for each guest to write their note on. Then, at the ceremony, guests can use marker pens to write their best wishes on as opposed to paper. Once you are back home, the wish pebbles can be displayed as a decorative item, either in a large dish or jar.

Pretty Place

When it comes to the wedding breakfast, shells make for striking beach styled place settings. Have your wedding planner and dutiful wedding helpers (i.e. bridesmaids and groomsmen) collect and clean as many open shells as you will need, then use a marker pen to write each guest’s name on the shell. If you want to go with a "message in a bottle" theme, which also emanates an effective rustic beach vibe, collect a selection of different coloured bottles to use, then write each guest's name on a weathered-looking piece of scroll in cursive script handwriting before popping a few of the beach’s local blooms into the bottle for a finishing touch.

 

 

 

"The Signature Weddings is a bespoke destination weddings service offering a wide range of options to couples. However, some of the products and services mentioned in the blog articles on this page may not be available as part of the Signature Weddings' service."