Palmetto Dunes Oceanfront Resort

All my husband and I knew was that we wanted a beach wedding on the East Coast. We had never been to Hilton Head, SC before. We fell in love with Palmetto Dunes the minute we saw it! We got married barefoot on the beach and had the reception at the Dunes House following the ceremony. Everything was outside on the beach! What a beautiful location to get married! We had a very positive experience from the start working with Nicole Guy. She was great to work with and knew just how to make the day special. She made the planning easy as we were doing everything long distance. The food was fantastic and the venue was perfect! The servers/bartenders that serviced our event were great. We would highly recommend this venue to anyone looking for that perfect beach wedding!

We had our wedding at the Dunes House in the Palmetto Dunes Resort this October and words cannot describe how perfect our big day was. We were planning a destination wedding and had never even been to Hilton Head. We found the Dunes House online and knew it was the spot for us. Anne was amazing from day one. She answered countless questions through emails and phone calls and did anything and everything to assist us on the big day. Kristin was equally amazing. She took a billion boxes of stuff we hauled down for decor and transformed it into the wedding of my dream - but even better. She was right there from the minute the party started to lighting the very last sparkler. Willy was my hero throughout the weekend, he made sure everything went smoothly for our rehearsal dinner and for the reception. He even helped us pack up the next day! Kim was an awesome bar manager and totally put up with my cray family all weekend! The Dunes House itself is a gem and can transformed into nearly whatever you desire. And the FOOD!!!!!! I still catch myself day dreaming about the food. It was incredible!!!! Each and every appetizer and entree was executed to perfection. All of my guests just keep raving about it! I personally reccomend the Dunes House and its all star crew. My big day was all that I had imagined and more and I owe it all to them!

My husband and I rented a home for the week on Palmetto Dunes Resort and held the ceremony and reception in the back yard of the home! It was absolutely beautiful! We planned the wedding from out of state, so we weren't really sure how everything was going to turn out! It was better than we could have possibly imagined! We ran into one little bump in the road (regarding the noise ordinance..and a whiny neighbor that had been complaining prior to our arrival)! This led to the possibility of us having to hold the reception inside the house which we were not happy about! It turns out though that the resort fought for what we really wanted and signed the contract for! We were able to do as we planned all along and everything turned out beautifully! Nicole, the resorts catering and events manager, was absolutely wonderful to work with! The food was great!! We can't wait to go back to the resort for our anniversary!!

We rented a private home at Palmetto Dunes to have our wedding and reception in the back yard (46 Sea Lane). It was absolutely breathtaking. We couldn't have asked for a more picturesque place to have our wedding. What I didn't like was this:

We were told that we could have the event going until 10PM before we had to bring it inside. We agreed to this and had every intention of partying it up until that time. During our ceremony, neighbors across the lagoon were watching us with binoculars and then proceeded to call security (the first time) right after we cut the cake. Keep in mind that it was still daylight out at this point (dusk, but daylight nonetheless). The cops came and even said our music wasn't really loud, but they came back again, gave the head caterer a warning and told us if they had to come back, then we would be fined $1000. It was only about 9PM when they told us this. I told them our agreement with the caterer, but they just weren't in a good mood that night, I suppose. Since we were having issues, I looked for our event manager, Nicole, who was nowhere to be found. We were told that she left, so I called her. I got no answer. She later called back and said "yeah, just bring it inside". Well, easy for you to say when you didn't spend the $20,000 we just dropped on our wedding. Around 9:30, we came into the house and continued the party. I enjoyed myself immensely because after all, it was our wedding day and we weren't going to let this ruin it. But, let me run the timeline by you:

5:30 Ceremony started (this was the first time I saw everything, as I was gone and getting ready all day)
6-7 Cocktail hour (groom and I were out front taking pictures) - music was a string trio at this point
7-8 Dinner, low music by DJ
8 - First time cops showed up, music still low (so low, in fact, that I asked my groom to have the DJ turn it up)
9:15 - Second time cops showed up
9:30 - Party brought inside

I think we can all agree that $20,000 is a TON of money for a 4 hour event that we didn't even get to enjoy in it's entirety. All we wanted to do was stay outside until 10 on a Saturday. The kicker was that the next day when we checked out of the house, the front desk told us that if we would have been fined, then Palmetto Dunes would have paid it -- wish we would have known this, we would have stayed outside until 10, but our event manager told us to come inside.

My suggestion is this......if you are going to rent a private residence in Palmetto Dunes, my suggestion would be to have an earlier wedding with no DJ. If you want a party, utilize one of their other facilities on-site (such as the Dunes House). If we would have known that we would have issues with cops being called on us for no good reason, we would not have held our event at a private home. But we were assured time and time again that we had until 10 and that noise would be no issue. Or, have in your contract that if any fines are incurred before 10 PM, that Palmetto Dunes will be responsible for paying them.

I do applaud Palmetto Dunes for discounting our final bill because of the issue without us ever asking for this. But, a discount can't undo stress on your wedding day.