How to Turn Your Shore Wedding Into a Mini Vacay For Your Guests

Dinner at Beach Plum Farm | Natalie Chitwood Photography

When you’re throwing a shore wedding, it makes sense for your guests to want to extend the trip a bit longer and turn celebrating your nuptials into a fun (and sandy) mini-getaway for them. Guests of all types — from fitness junkies to foodies to admirers of nature — can find plenty of reasons to stay a few extra days with these fun beach-based activities. And don’t worry, if you’re looking for more shore wedding planning inspiration, we’ve got your ultimate guide to New Jersey shore weddings right here.

For Local-First Foodies

Though the best way to explore the chickens, pigs and veggie patches of West Cape May’s Beach Plum Farm is to stay in the new cottages (more on that on page 132), tours — as well as tickets to the fresh-from-the-farm chef’s dinners — are open to the public. The meal worth (sort of) dressing up for is at Polpo in Avalon, which has featured classic Italian seafood dishes since opening in September of last year.

For Fitness Junkies

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No need for guests to break from their usual regimen. On Saturdays in July (and some in August), Pure Barre Ardmore hosts (barre-less) $10 classes on the beach in front of the Deauville Inn in Strathmere. Over in Avalon, South Philly spinning outfit Revel Ride is running a pop-up studio on 21st Street from May through at least Labor Day.

For Those With Kids

Ocean City’s Congo Falls Adventure Golf — you know, the one where you putt-putt your way around shipwrecks, giant lizards and trickling waterfalls — opened a smaller but equally fun-for-the-kiddos outpost in Margate City last summer. For those traveling with even tinier tykes, Avalon’s new boardwalk-adjacent Surfside Park opens in June with a big, beautiful green space and plenty of playground equipment.

For Kids At Heart

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Ax-throwing arrived Shoreside in April with Flying Hatchets on the Wildwood boardwalk. Note: There’s no booze, and you must be 18 to throw. But at the 16-month-old open-air Biergarten in Atlantic City, there are adult beverages aplenty — as well as classic bar games like ping-pong, foosball and cornhole.

For Outdoorsy Types

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Based in Absecon, Scott Newhall’s Time Out Charters has offered four-to-eight-hour fishing tours — both inshore and out on the ocean — for small groups since 2006. Also long established and still a solid go-to: Stacey’s Surf & Paddle guided sunset stand-up paddleboard tours out of Margate City.

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