Beach Weddings

Hi All,

I am a wedding and events co-ordinator in Surrey and it has now come time to plan my own wedding! Total creative control has gone to my head and myself and fiance are planning an intimate wedding reception in South Africa. (We will be having a reception back in the UK too but that should be reasonably hassle free having lots of contacts).

We are trying to match up a rustic reception in a game reserve (which we have found and it is beautiful and very reasonably priced) with a beach wedding ceremony (now this is the tricky bit).

Apart from the wedding co-ordinators being super unhelpful, everything is so overpriced because they want the WHOOOOOLE wedding. Whilst I understand they need to make money, our wedding will be on a Tuesday and therefore not interfere with any weekend dates they want to concentrate on.

It has got to the point now where we are looking into DIY'ing it and getting a beach permit and organising everything ourselves as well as brining picnic baskets and drinks to the beach for after the ceremony. (We had originally thought cocktails and canapes on a deck at a venue but the price seems crazy).

If anyone has had any experience with beach weddings or knows a friend who got married on a beach (even better in South Africa, Durban) then I'd love to hear how they went about organising it.

Looking forward to hearing any suggestions and thanks in advance!

Happy Weddings! x