Task 4: Confirm Wedding Ceremony Site

Today I’m sharing about our fourth To Do task in planning our wedding. We visited Destin, FL – our destination wedding location – and confirmed a wedding ceremony site.

Our Wedding Ceremony Site

When we arrived at the Beachside Inn and decided it was going to be the perfect place for our guests to stay, we also decided it would be much more convenient for EVERYONE if we had the ceremony on Crystal Beach – and not 3 miles down a busy road.

We didn’t rule out Henderson Beach State Park (our original ceremony site) without checking it out first. A beach is a beach – there is sand, water, sky, seagulls, etc. – but the difference between a State Park Beach and public beach is that there are rules, such as no alcohol, and a park ranger must be present, and if you want to have a little party on their pavilion it’s $2/person… not to mention the big ugly parking lot and mile long drive off the highway.

Needless to say when we saw the pavilion at Crystal Beach and the proximity of the Inn to the beach – we were sold. It is going to cost $25 to cancel our permit at the State Park but oh well – it is totally worth it.

The Beachside Inn said they could set up a little food and/or drink station in the pavilion before/after the ceremony for the wedding party, and there will be no park rangers patrolling the area! Also, the beach is surrounded by houses that are not usually occupied during October – so we don’t have to worry about crowds of random people setting up camp on our ceremony site.