Planning Our Miami Wedding, pt 1
It had been a bit of a dream of ours to get married on a beach. Tall palm trees, the waves of the ocean and the sand between our toes; it all seemed like a distant fantasy until we decided to ask a wedding planner based out of Miami how much a wedding like that would actually cost.
Much to our surprise, even with the USD/CAD conversion rate, the total cost for the wedding would not greatly exceed what we had budgeted for a wedding in Ontario. Of course we would have flights and hotels to factor in for ourselves and guests, but we didn’t want to rule out the possibility of a destination wedding just yet.
We coordinated a 4-day trip to Miami to check out the city and hotels to see if this was truly something we could pull off. Each of the venues we considered for the ceremony and reception were beach-side hotels so we decided to stay each night at a different venue’s hotel to gauge our room experience in addition to the venue itself.
The first hotel we visited was The Palms Hotel & Spa located in Mid Beach and it absolutely blew our expectations. The hotel was luscious with greenery and exotic plants that was more akin to that of a resort than a hotel. With an excellent restaurant, bar outdoor seating and huge pool, this hotel had certainly grabbed our attention. It was the vision of serene relaxation we had hoped for.
For the ceremony, there are two outdoor options: a gazebo on the hotel lawn or the wide beach just outside the hotel gates. While the gazebo looked phenomenal, Jessica and I agreed that if our guests are to spend the time and money to come all the way down to Miami for our wedding, the setting should probably be the beach, right?
A beach wedding does require a permit from the city of Miami Beach since it’s public land but we could easily acquire this in order to set up our arch, seating and flowers for the ceremony. Just look at the view!
What we weren’t expecting at The Palms was a brand new tiki hut large enough to accommodate 50 guests all under one roof. Surrounded by gorgeous botanicals and tucked away into the corner for added privacy, this tiki hut would make for an incredible tropical themed reception.
Needless to say, The Palms Hotel & Spa left a very favourable impression on us and set the bar particularly high.
The next hotel we viewed was Newport Beachside Hotel whose main attraction was a massive dock adjacent to the hotel that extends far out into the ocean.
The incredibly long dock makes for an almost comically long wedding isle. Once at the end, though, it makes for one heck of a view isolated from the beach-goers. An unobstructed view into the Atlantic ocean, surrounded by water with a skyline of tall condos and hotels on the flip side. We were very much fans of this setup, visually. However, due to booking fees and logistics, we would need to keep both the ceremony and reception on the dock and the entire event would be rather short. This, coupled with the faint fishy smell of the dock helped us make up our minds between this and The Palms.
The final hotels to view were Hotel Bentley and Double Tree and while they had decent accommodations, they lacked the tropical feel we were looking for. The biggest takeaway from the Double Tree was this INCREDIBLE sunrise from the lobby the morning after. A sunrise so unbelievably vast and unobstructed that the sky appeared to be engulfed by fire.
In the end, we decided to go with our hearts and selected the first hotel we came across: The Palms Hotel & Spa. Our minds were made the moment we stepped foot in the hotel as the venue hit all the marks of what we were looking for, with several additional amenities we were not even anticipating!
We also squeezed in several other appointments while we were visiting, meeting up with potential DJs, florists and photographers/videographers. With integral vendors and a venue selected, we could arrive home knowing that our dream wedding would actually become a reality — but not before relaxing on the beach!
Please hold down the 👏 button if you enjoyed reading this! Doing so helps support me and encourages me to write more!
This blog entry is part of the publication Robert Cekan Travels
Robert Cekan is a young entrepreneur and proud Hamiltonian. He is the founder of the Hamilton discovery website True Resident, as well as Cekan Group, a property management group. He is also a Hamilton REALTOR® with Ambitious Realty Advisors Inc., Brokerage and an active blogger.
For all of Robert’s projects, please visit robertcekan.com
