With the help of a few conch shells and a liferaft or two, you can turn your wedding into a nautical dream day. Check out some of our suggestions on how to decorate for a maritime marriage.
Oceanic Centerpieces
There are many centerpieces you can make based on a simple beach pail (a galvanized bucket works just as well). You can paint the pail with whitewash or opaque paints and fill it with seaside flowers like verbena and beach morning glories. You can fill the pails with seashells, starfish and beach glass to spill out onto each table and around each centerpiece. Or, you can fill pails with fun beach gifts that can also serve as favors: tanning lotions, aloe vera gel, sunglasses, and floaties are all cute ideas. Other water-based theme ideas are sailboats, liferafts, fishing equipment, and lighthouses.
Placecards and Holders
Set placecards in delicate pewter shell placecard holders, or line placecards along an oar or inside of liferafts. Write each guest's name on a sanddollar for a truly beachy placecard. Use real shells to hold placecards, or emboss each card with a stamp of a sailboat, a wave, or a shell.
Waterfront Accents
Use fish nets, bouys, oars, and other ocean equipment you can find at an antiques dealer to decorate your reception room; make sure you include your nautical theme in invitations with embossed shells, sailboats, or wave-like scallops; give chocolate-shaped shells or tiny buckets of sand as favors
Accentuate the Aisle
Since you won't be walking down a traditional center aisle, make one using a pathway of shells and/or starfish, or create a walkway when you line it with wedding white luminaries. If city ordinances allow it, mark the aisle with tiki torches. Make a circle of shells for the two of you to stand inside. If your fathers have the gumption, ask them to create tiny sandcastles to mark you an "aisle" the day of the wedding.
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