Local brides to get help with weddings

Planning your dream beach wedding? We're here to help.The love of your life has just kneeled on one knee and asked for your hand in marriage… But now what?
Many dream of having a beach wedding, where the vastness of the sea mirrors their love for one and other, but the logistics of planning can be difficult.
Enter Delaware Seaside Bride. With a website — DelawareSeasideBride.com — and yearly print magazine that will launch March 6, 2015, Delaware Seaside Bride will be your guide to planning your dream day, surrounded by the beauty of the Delaware beaches.

“We wanted to develop a site where a bride could do some ‘one-stop’ shopping in terms of finding all the vendors she would need for her wedding at the Delaware beaches,” explained Susan Lyons, publisher of the Coastal Point newspaper and DelawareSeasideBride.com.
“It’s an exciting and overwhelming time, all at once. We just hope we can provide her a little help and ‘introduce’ her to some of the amazing talent we have in this area. There’s really nothing like this locally, so we see it as filling a need.”
In speaking to brides and brides-to-be, we found there was a need for those who want to take their vows in the South Coastal Delaware area.
“A list of available local vendors, with average price or price range, so brides can find the best vendor for their budget,” would be helpful, said Elizabeth Reichert of Milton, who will be getting married this May. “All of the wedding websites/magazines group Coastal Delaware with the rest of Delaware and Philadelphia. Vendors in Philadelphia are not very practical for Coastal Delaware brides.”
“I think having a Delaware-specific website will help brides narrow down their options much more quickly since everything will be on one location, rather than 10 different magazines or websites,” added Bayard resident Samantha Torrijos, who got married in 2012 at Towers Beach.
Destination weddings have become more and more popular in recent years, and the Delaware beaches have joined in that booming popularity. However, destination weddings can be even more difficult to plan, as the task of finding photographers, caterers, DJs and other vendors can be a challenge — particularly in an area that often gets lost in the shuffle on the national wedding sites.
“Most of the publications I used were all of Delaware or larger. Most of my searching was done individually… i.e., ‘photographers near Bethany Beach,’ ‘wedding cakes in Delaware,’ etc.,” said Courtney Repman, a Pennsylvania resident who got married at Baywood Greens this past September.
“During the whole planning process, I didn’t see a single source I could go to… There are all these websites out there, like TheKnot.com, but a lot of them were for the Wilmington area. There wasn’t a one-stop-shop kind of place for the beach area.”
“The biggest part was knowing all the different regulations for each beach,” added Kelsey Miller, a Pennsylvania resident who got married last October in Bethany Beach.
Delaware Seaside Bride will be an ever-evolving site, featuring timely articles created by the staff, offering ideas and suggestions for that special day, along with tips and photographs from those who frequent the page — truly making it a site that never grows stale and one that constantly offers fresh content.
The site will host stories and ideas on everything leading up to the big day — including area towns’ rules for beach weddings, where and when to get a marriage license, suggestions for signature drinks and more. We will also carry the couple through those things that need to be handled after the wedding, such as changing names and starting that joint bank account.
There will also be a glossy print edition of Delaware Seaside Bride, which will be published this summer. It will serve as an excellent coffee table-style book that can be used as a frame of reference throughout the planning process, as well as offering tips, ideas and suggestions to make the big day as memorable as can be.
“We’re excited about this new venture,” said Editor Darin McCann. “We hope that in creating this resource for local and out of town couples, we can help make planning their wedding a breeze, so they can enjoy the experience and the beauty of our Delaware beaches.”
DelawareSeasideBride.com will go live online on March 6, 2015. If you would like to advertise your services on the site or in the magazine, call Susan Mutz at (302) 539-1788 or email her at susan.mutz@delawareseasidebride.com. If you have suggestions for story ideas, call Maria Counts at the same number, or email her at maria.counts@delawareseasidebride.com.