###Before the ceremony
As of 2010, Cedar Point really wasn't that keen on having weddings at their hotels / park.
My now-husband called to try and get information a few times earlier in the year (March / April, I believe? Wedding was in early September), but the off-season staff was really rude to him and told him we wouldn't be allowed even on the beach without "proper beach wear."
"What's beach wear?" he asked. "Bathing suits? Lots of people go on the beach who aren't in bathing suits."
The person on the phone just kept saying "beach wear," but refused to define what that meant.
Later in the year (I want to say June?) I contacted Tony and Tyler, who used to run the Cedar Point official blog, and they put me in touch with Jason Blake, the Group Event Specialist (jblake@cedarpoint.com). All he did was say that we could use the beach as long as we did no setup (no decoration, no candles, nothing left behind.)
He also said that a 'full wedding gown and tuxedo' would be considered costumes (on par with Halloween costumes) and they would not be allowed inside the park.
That was really the only contact I had with CP other than the usual (making hotel reservations, getting tickets, etc.)
It was clear there was no precedence for this kind of thing and we were met with a lot of "I don't know," "not sure who you should ask," etc.
We took one trip about a month out to get our marriage license ([Erie Country Court house](http://www.eriecounty.oh.gov/departments-and-agencies/legal-resources/probate-court/marriage-licenses/general-info/) in case you were wondering), check out the grounds around the Breakers with an eye toward pictures, and more importantly, alternate locations with shelter in case of rain.
There is a gazebo near Sandcastle suites that would make a decent alternate location in case of rain. We ended up not needing it but got some great pics there anyway.
We heard later that you can reserve the rotunda area inside Hotel Breakers for events; I don't know if there's a charge associated with it since we didn't go that route. No one at CP even mentioned it to us a possibility in the earlier planning stages.
Our pre-wedding scouting trip was actually way more fun and private and memorable than the wedding. Just FYI.
###Day Of
We gathered in the Breakers lobby around 8:30am just went out on the beach, waiting for the officiant to show up, did the ceremony (~25 minutes), came back in to the lobby, changed clothes as needed (I threw a pair of jean crops on under my cocktail dressa nd the boys took off their ties) and we went to the park and got in line for Maverick.
It felt sort of guerrilla, really, like we were shooting a movie without a permit.
Everything else we treated like a normal day at Cedar Point, but with an awesome photographer following us around. Lunch at Johnny Rockets, dinner at Tomo.
I just wanted to make it clear that we only had… about 8 people at the ceremony. This was not a massive wedding. I can't imagine more than 15 people doing this guerrilla style beach wedding and having it work but you guys are probably more resourceful than I am!
We didn't make a huge deal of it in the park. The ferris wheel operator twigged to what was going on -- she figured out my 'top' was actually a dress, and asked us if we had just gotten married -- and then made an announcement over the ride loudspeaker to everyone in line to give us a round of applause and they… clapped reluctantly.
No one else figured it out and we weren't terribly vocal about it.
###Vendors:
**Venue**: Hotel Breakers
Breakers is fine and dandy for a normal vacation stay. It has its own kind of charm. I am by no means a pampered, girly sort of bride (if you couldn't tell by now) but we ended up in an old unrenovated wing of the hotel and honestly… you don't want to spend the night before / morning of your wedding in a room that would make a college dorm seem luxurious. It was pretty bad. We got through it and at the time I had other things to stress about. But I wouldn't do it again. Or at the very least I would stay in a nicer portion of the hotel. But we were scrimping to save money.
**Photography**: Edric Morales
[http://blog.edricmorales.com/wedding-at-cedar-point-amusement-park-sandusky-oh/](http://blog.edricmorales.com/wedding-at-cedar-point-amusement-park-sandusky-oh/)
I LOVED Edric. Oh my gosh. He's amazing. His shots are phenomenal. Just have a look at what he did for our wedding. I think he's even better now, with the additional years of experience, and I know he'd be happy to shoot at Cedar Point again. I'm sure he'd be even MORE skilled at it a second time around.
He wasn't even doing photography as a full-time job at the time of our wedding, and his kids were just little babies, and yet he STILL had more energy than ANYONE at the wedding. He went from 8:30am to ~10:00 PM -- and this was not a normal wedding with a lot of waiting, we ran around the park all day, miles of walking -- and then his equipment broke down. He actually offered to go out to the car and get his backup equipment. We were zonked -- we told him to go home, he'd gotten about a zillion shots.
I could go on and on. 5 stars, whole-heartedly recommended.
**Nails**: [Scarlett O'Hair](http://www.scarlettohair.com/) I did my own hair and makeup but had a mani-pedi done here, and some of the other ladies attending had some things done as well. It was fine. The mani-pedi looked good. Pedi lasted forever, mani lasted less than 48 hours. I got a 30 minute massage and the massage table was so uncomfortable I left more tense than when I arrived. Everyone was nice and got my whole party in. Basically a passable local salon.
**Officiant**: [Elyria Wedding Minister](http://www.elyriaweddingminister.org/Our_Staff.html) (now Ohio Clergy Services) - I am not going to go into details here, I don't want this to be a bash fest, but I would not recommend their services AT ALL. There are other officiants in the area. It's one of those things that went wrong, and is now a hilarious story we can share in retrospect but was a bit mortifying in the moment. Get a different officiant.
### Unsolicited Advice
Don't get married at Cedar Point.
Get Edric Morales to do an engagement shoot for you at CP. Wear comfy clothes, be yourself, run around all day and take the amazing photos I know you can get at the park.
And then get married somewhere nice. Or elope, or whatever you want.
But unless they've changed some things, Cedar Point really doesn't have the facilities / policies in place to handle a wedding, and the services that I, as an out-of-towner, was able to source were slim pickings and not what we really wanted.
We had fun, we had good moments, we made it work, there are parts of it we can now laugh about, and the pictures are phenomenal. But I wouldn't do it if I had it to do over again.
### Update: Castaway Bay is offering Wedding packages
I am pretty sure this wasn't a thing when we were getting married but just did a bit of googling and saw this:
http://www.castawaybay.com/public/visit/weddings/index.cfm
No opinion on it, but sounds nicer and less stressful than ours.
In conclusion, sorry to be a downer. I just want folks to know what they are getting into.