FIND YOUR BEACH

MARRIAGE ON MARCO

You would think that having a wedding on the beach would be easy. You and your wedding party should just be able to saunter onto the sand and have some officiant mutter a few choice words, exchange your rings and get off to the reception and start drinking soon thereafter.

It ain’t that easy.

Oh, I’m sure you can do it commando style and just show up and do the dirty deed, but I’ll bet somewhere down the line the powers that be will balk about it and you won’t get that marriage certificate because the whole thing wasn’t done proper and legal.

And, I don’t think there’s a bride out there that’ll just want to get ‘er done just to avoid fussing with the logistics. It’s best to go through the right channels and procedures to make her most important day a reality. Believe me, in the long run you’ll be happier. Remember happy wife....happy life....

PERMITS AND PACKAGES

Our beach wedding took place on Marco Island, Florida. This large barrier island on the southwest coast has white powdery sand and is lapped by the tranquil waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It is a beautiful place and it is very easy to get to the island. The closest airport is at Ft. Myers, less than an hour’s drive north. Getting a permit to hold a wedding ceremony is quite more involved.

Wedding permits are sold by the Collier County Parks Department on a first come first serve basis to one of the two public access beaches on Marco Island. One is at the north end at Tigertail Beach and the other is the South Marco Beach Access. The rest of the shore is controlled by the many condos and hotels along the three mile stretch of sand.

Here’s the process: First, you must request the permit, but only two months in advance. If the date and your time is available, then you have the right to apply for a permit. Once notified you then send in a check and if yours is the first one to arrive then your wedding bliss can begin.

A couple of notes with this permit: Attendees are limited to just 50 people, any more and liability insurance must be purchased, and parking for our chosen location, the South Marco Beach Access, is across Collier Boulevard and costs $8.00 per car.

PARKS AND RECREATION - COLLIER COUNTY

LIKE A HURRICANE

You would think that getting the permit was enough stress, but our planned wedding date, September 15, was during hurricane season. We fretted over the time of day and opted to have the ceremony in the late afternoon, hopefully avoiding the typical daily spritzing Florida always seems to get and kept our fingers crossed that Hurricane Florence would miss us. Looming dangerously as the date approached Florence instead hammered the Carolinas and our wedding was dry, and by Floridian standards, cooler.

SHOES OPTIONAL

Believe it or not the rest of the wedding ceremony was relatively easy to plan. We went with Platinum Florida Beach Weddings and we picked out the color scheme and shape of the arbor and they provided the chairs and water for guests, a pastor and a photographer. We did have to write up our wedding vows, although we could have used one from their list. We also had to come up with a list of songs that were to be played throughout the event and make up a list of pictures we wanted from the photographer. 

We were pleased with Platinum and they took care of little details like having a place for people to leave the shoes if they decided on going barefoot in the sand, flower petals for the flower girl, water for the guests, a very jovial and engaging pastor, and a very competent photographer.

As part of the wedding we had some sort of sand unity ceremony where we had to scoop up sand where we stood and joined our scoops into one container, thereby showing the world that we were truly conjoined. Despite hedging on hokey the sardonic hearts of your traveling duo embraced this and melted into one. That’s a corny line huh?

 PLATINUM BEACH WEDDINGS

Looking forward to traveling to other beaches with this woman.

BAD MARRIAGE

 

GOOD MARRIAGE

Thanks for reading!

Love Janet and greg

A VACATION WITH A BIG ASS CAKE

Call me Mr. Marshall

Sadly, most people spend more time planning vacations than they do for retirement. Where to go? How to go? When to go? What to do? What to bring? What to wear? Your mind can spin taking care of travel plans. Retirement investment is far less of a headache, unless you’re not saving anything, but at least the angst for that comes much later.

Now, consider this scenario; travel plans AND a wedding. Oh my word, it seems implausible that both can be tended to at the same time. Traveling can have one teetering with details, but couple it with a destination wedding, and eloping becomes frighteningly attractive.

Somehow though, Team VFH, now conjoined in holy matrimony, pulled it off… Oops I misspoke, Janet is slapping me in the back of the head … SHE pulled it off.

For me the local VFW hall would have been the perfect venue for our wedding and reception. Get a keg, order some pizzas, fire up the jukebox, and the party was happening. Tasked with any more details my head would explode. Thankfully Janet ignored me, and all her planning made for a memorable weekend. To pull it off she waded through a mountainous stack of details. Me, I’m worthless comparatively.

MARCO ISLAND

Our destination wedding in September was as exotic as you can get and still be relatively close to home. Marco Island, a large barrier island on the southwest Florida coast, has three miles of pristine sugar cane white sand and a tropical climate with manatees and dolphins in the warm placid waters of the Gulf of Mexico and it just seemed like an ideal romantic destination wedding. We had been there before on an extended family vacation and Janet’s college friend who lives on the island wanted to host the reception at her spacious and opulent home. That certainly was a whole lot better than the VFW hall in Downingtown, PA.

 

LOOKING SOUTH ON MARCO ISL

Less than an hour’s drive south of the airport in Ft. Myers, Marco Island was as convenient as it was beautiful. Already having a place to throw the reception was a big help, but then it was a matter of getting people there, where to hold the ceremony, who would cater it, how to get that big ass cake in the house and who would provide entertainment. 

Janet handled most of these details. She contacted Marco Island’s chamber of commerce to get the beach wedding permit. She picked out the wedding company that would set up the arboretum and chairs and provide a pastor and a photographer. She booked the caterer and baker and the uber-karaoke guy appropriately named Marco. 

She also took care of finding a house on AirBnb for her kids and a condo for mine. She made sure my best man and my brother had a place to stay. She posted everything on Facebook as a way of inviting everyone. She advised all the attendees how to get to Marco and how to make their own living arrangements. She shopped for her dress, pulled me by the ear to Tommy Bahamas to purchase appropriate beach wedding clothes. She also worked as the cruise director and came up with a slew of activities for the extended weekend, even picking out the charter fishing I was going to do on the Monday following the wedding. And all the while she was looking radiant. 

I wrote checks.

Yep...she's the boss.