Your Wedding and Florida’s Red Tide Outbreak

You either already have or you will be hearing about Red Tide on Florida beaches. If you are hosting a wedding on the Gulf Coast of Florida, you need to stay in touch with your venue to track developments.

According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, “Red tide is a naturally-occurring microscopic alga that has been documented along Florida’s Gulf Coast since the 1840s.”

These blooms happen almost every year in the Gulf of Mexico, usually limited to offshore waters. But as currents change each year, so too does the location. Unfortunately, this year the bloom is colliding with beach weddings on the Florida West coast.

Is it a man-made problem? Maybe not. I have personally witnessed Red Tide in unpolluted waters off California and Panama. In those cases, it was simply an anomaly.

The good news.

There is no reason to believe Red Tide will harm your Florida Keys wedding. The problem is isolated to beaches much further North. In the Florida Keys entire history, I am not aware of any instance of red tide in our pristine waters. Your beach wedding should go ahead exactly as planned.
This is a map of the affected areas. It shows that the Red Tide bloom is limited to beaches on Florida’s Gulf coast much further north from Key Largo.

“There is no reason to believe it will harm your Florida Keys wedding. The problem is isolated to beaches further North.”