Pismo Beach Wedding – Planning a wedding can be both an exciting, yet stressful time in your life. I’m going to share some real weddings from our couples who had a Pismo Beach wedding. Find out more about how they made their weddings stress-free and how you can have a destination wedding.
It can be so easy to get caught up in all of the details of wedding planning that you forget to enjoy the process – that special time that you are engaged and can use the word fiancé.
Meet Morgan and Kevin, who had a Pismo Beach wedding. They drove a few hours to get to Pismo Beach to celebrate their special day.
Here is Morgan’s story of her wedding planning journey and why she decided to have a Pismo Beach wedding:
Two years ago, my husband and I found ourselves extremely overwhelmed when we were in the middle of planning our wedding. Less than a month after getting engaged, we started touring local venues and ended up booking with the first venue we toured. We loved the venue we chose, however due to some unforeseen circumstances and health issues in our families, we came to the realization that we wanted a smaller, more intimate wedding. Our original wedding venue would have held up to 150 guests; which was excellent in theory, but overwhelming in reality. This venue was also turning out to be quite costly for us.
We then started to research destination weddings in California. Before we began dating, the first place we felt a spark with each other was at Pismo Beach, so we set out to find a venue that did small weddings in that area. During our search we came across Coastal California Weddings. I was immediately intrigued by the beautiful locations and the options that were available. My husband and I knew right away that this was a more budget-friendly, feasible route for us to take. Another huge bonus of booking with Coastal California Weddings was that it was at our favorite beach!
Although we knew this was the best option for us, we also recognized that this would not be convenient for our guests. Many times a destination wedding can become stressful for anyone attending. We accepted that this may mean some family members would not be able to come to our wedding at all. Overall, we had the support of our friends and family when we expressed to them that we planned to have a destination wedding. A majority of our guests chose to book a hotel room nearby, and some decided to drive home after our reception since they lived a few hours away. We also had some guests fly in from Texas, Oklahoma and Oregon. Our guests loved our ceremony location, the fact that it was a place that was sentimental to both of us and the fact that they could walk down to the beach at our Pismo Beach wedding reception.
With all of that being said, I cannot imagine planning my wedding any other way than the way Natalie did, and I am so thankful we chose to have a destination wedding. Going from having a wedding with 150 guests to a wedding with less than 30 guests truly allowed us to be present at that moment. I don’t regret anything about our decision to have a destination wedding—and if it meant marrying my husband again—I would choose to have another destination wedding in a heartbeat.
Morgan had all the important people at her wedding. She celebrated her day with her ladies right by her side and even had a wedding reception in Avila Beach.
Just because you have a small wedding, does not mean you have to forget about things like cutting a cake, having a first dance and having a best man and maid of honor.
Meet Ashlee and Trey who traveled all the way from Missouri to have their Pismo Beach wedding. They took a car and plane to get to Pismo .
Here’s Ashlee’s story:
We flew from Kansas City into Los Angeles. We stayed in Solvang for two days before we drove up to Pismo. We were spending a 2 week vacation in California and wanted to see a variety of sites.
For my wedding, even though it was small, I wanted a traditional wedding dress. My dress was from Emily Hart Bridal and the designer was Casablanca Bridal.
Since I had to travel on an airplane for my Pismo Beach wedding, I had to think about how to pack my dress. I actually put my dress and Trey’s suit in a carry-on suitcase. My bridesmaid brought a travel steamer and worked her magic on all of the dresses and suits. It’s crazy how easily the dress fit into the suitcase, because I stressed way too much over that. I literally put all of our essentials inside a carry-on and it never left my sight. Everyone thought I was nuts for not carrying the dress on in a garment bag, but I didn’t want to lug it in and out of hotels and the rental car in a bag.
Most of the guests flew from Kansas City, but we had guests from Omaha, Chicago, Houston and Lubbock. Trey is a Texas boy!
The bridesmaid dresses came from Azazie-which is an online dress shop. It was pretty easy to pick out their dresses, considering my bridesmaids live in different states. I picked the color and let them choose the dress.
The best part about it being a destination wedding was being able to have a vacation wrapped into a wedding celebration. Most of the people who came out had plenty of notice and made a trip out of it. Instead of stressing about decorations and details, we experienced California. It was considerably more affordable compared to what it would have been if we would have had the wedding at home. Plus, it was a fun adventure and honeymoon! We stopped in Big Sur, drove up to Sonoma and spent a few days in San Francisco for our honeymoon.
The fact that 32 of our friends and family flew across the country to sit in the rain to watch us tie the knot is pretty awesome. As much as I am a controlling planner…I learned you can’t control everything. And it all turned out perfect just the way it was.
We were able to have the perfect wedding within the budget we were comfortable with, with very little stress. We were also able to see the beautiful state of California. I have heard countless friends go through the stress of planning a big wedding, and I knew I never wanted to experience that. Natalie made it easy for us and we created lifelong memories that I wouldn’t trade for anything.
Meet Chelsea and Brian who traveled 5 hours to get to their Pismo Beach wedding.
Here’s Chelsea’s story:
When deciding what our wedding was going to look like, we had a lot of factors to think about, but time was our biggest. My husband’s step-mom was in the middle of her fight with cancer. It meant a lot to both of us that she was there and that his dad would get to have a special memory like that with her. She was truly the love of his life, their love story is epic and we wanted them to be there and be part of our wedding. So with this in mind, we decided it had to be summer 2019, giving myself 4.5 months to plan it. Crazy? Probably.
But nothing in our relationship has ever been orthodox to say the least. The next factor was where we could make this happen without it completely crushing my hopes of having my dream wedding. I have always envisioned my wedding being outdoors, though the backdrop has changed a few times, my request has always been that it be outdoors. I love trees and the ocean. My husband and I are from Sacramento, so the closest ocean is the Bay Area and beyond. I had attempted to plan it all myself when we picked our date, but was stressing myself out trying to get permits. Getting permits for a wedding on the beach is confusing when you don’t know the rules for the area.
I had a lot of high expectations for my wedding on a pretty low budget, so eventually I had to get real and talk to my fiancé about finding somewhere that would do it all for us. I told him that with the time limit and my high expectations I needed to put it all in someone else’s hands. I got lucky with Coastal California Weddings being the first site I looked at. They had everything I needed, including my dream location, a Eucalyptus grove. I tried to overdo the extra decorations at first and sent Natalie a boatload of extra decor that I wanted to bring myself, and all this extra stuff that would add more stress to my plate. She gently reminded me that I sought them out for someone to provide it all and to trust that. (Note from Natalie – the backdrop of the ceremony location was really pretty! It really didn’t need anything extra. )
Our day wound up being even more wonderful than I imagined, and all of this came to fruition through simple emails. From answering any and all of my questions, to calming my nerves the day of, this team and company are heaven-sent, to say the least.
So there you have it, 3 different brides with 3 different stories. They all had a simply amazing wedding in Pismo Beach. Some traveled a few hundred miles by car and others a few thousand miles by plane. Pismo Beach is the perfect little beach town for a wedding. It’s located halfway between LA and San Francisco.
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