We booked Haley’s Court for our wedding week and cannot say enough incredible things about our experience—it is family friendly (or not if you so choose!), has beautiful options for bridal suites, has an amazing backyard for hosting a rehearsal dinner and welcome gathering, and couldn’t be in a better location. We had been looking for a hotel wedding block for our bridal party and family and after touring a chain hotel across the street and having no luck, we saw the cute, vintage sign for Haley’s Court across the road and popped over to the office where we met Shelby. Shelby is the niece of the family-owned boutique motel and was finishing final touches on the beautifully renovated spaces. There are 16 apartments/units at the motel, and we asked about blocking out the whole place for our guests. Shelby went above and beyond to get us a great price and worked with us for months to coordinate our week of events at the end of September.

Family Friendly: As a bride and groom local to Saint Augustine and Gainesville, we spent a lot of time deliberating about where to get married and where our out-of-town guests would have the best time. Haley’s Court checked all the boxes for our guests old and young. It was incredibly easy for our friends and family to book unique rooms that worked for each of them. For example, we had several bridesmaids traveling with their parents and children who needed rooms close together. Haley’s Court has multiple rooms located side by side, which made it incredibly convenient for families to stay nearby while still enjoying their own private space. This setup allowed grandparents to help watch the kids during the wedding while everyone remained comfortable for the rest of the weekend. We also loved the outdoor lounge area. It has space for 16 people to sit comfortably and enjoy coffee and breakfast and coloring books. The rooms range from queen studios to multi-room suites with king beds, pull-out queens, and full kitchens. Several rooms also have private patios! The units are arranged in a U-shape, so everyone’s door opens into a courtyard (rather than a dark hallway like most chain hotels!), making it super convenient for the bridal party to keep an eye on kids and still be present for wedding activities.

Bridal Suite: Another thing that we loved was that Unit 14 (Salt Run) was perfect for a bridal suite! It has a massive open-concept kitchen and dining area (for four) along with a living room with a huge couch and bar stools at the counter for makeup and hair. Our photographer (Julianna Montane) is a Florida native, so she was quite at home at Haley’s Court, and we loved taking pictures with her on the morning of our wedding. The Salt Run bedroom has a beautiful and comfortable king bed for the newlyweds and there are even full-size bunk beds tucked in a corner of the apartment which came in handy for a few guests who needed to stay a night here or there before their accommodations were ready. One thing that was super unexpected but needed was that the Salt Run has a massive walk-in closet that fit boxes and boxes of wedding décor, rehearsal dinner supplies, folding tables, three inflatable paddle boards, cornhole, and so much more!

Rehearsal Dinner: We rented out the whole place, so we were able to host our rehearsal dinner in the backyard! We loved the greenspace which has a gazebo and string lights, plenty of cute Adirondack chairs, and several picnic tables lent to us by the motel. We threw a BBQ catered by Brisky’s and played cornhole and just had a fantastic time. Our guests love the motel décor--it is perfectly Floridian so everyone who came from out of town felt like they got a perfect beach experience! One thing to note—Haley’s Court uses the fantastic backyard for events like ours, so it unfortunately can’t be dog-friendly. As dog parents, this was bittersweet because it would have been great to have our pup with us but at the same time, we appreciated that the backyard space was super clean. This was literally the only potential negative we could come up with, and even so, it was not so much of a negative as it was a positive tradeoff for our rehearsal dinner picnic and welcome gathering plans!

Location: Because you exit Haley’s Court and turn left and hit the beach or turn right and hit the Vilano Beach Pier, there's really no way to get lost in this little island village. A cute Irish pub (Durty Neli’s) had just opened next door, and the groom held his bachelor party there—the staff were amazing. The water-front restaurant (Beaches) is right next to the pier and was able to accommodate 80 wedding guests outside on the deck for lunch the day after the wedding. After our rehearsal dinner in the backyard of Haley’s Court, we walked across the street to Pesca Rooftop and our photographer took beautiful sunset photos with our guests. From the roof, you can see the lighthouse, downtown St. Augustine, and the intracoastal, and they usually have live music. The rooftop is pretty big and was able to accommodate more than 100 guests coming and going. We also tried out the pizza place by the Irish pub which is amazing. They make a burger wrapped in pizza dough called an American Pie and our British guests thought it was the coolest. There's also a cute coffee shop just next door to the motel that serves Kookaburra Coffee and Crème de la Coco pastries which are both Saint Augustine staples! Haley's Court also provided us with QR codes and a discount for bike rentals, which our guests loved. There's also a nature boardwalk just behind the motel that connects this area to all the neighborhoods on the other side of the bridge, so if guests book vacation rentals down the road, nobody has to walk on the busy A1A to get there!

Getting to Historic Downtown: Our wedding ceremony and reception were in the touristy downtown area of St. Augustine by the marina and there is a water taxi that takes you from the Vilano Beach Pier to the marina downtown so our guests were able to not only enjoy doing tourist things downtown in their spare time, but they were also able to get to and from the venue without driving. We also rented Old Town Trolley buses to take guests who were less enthusiastic about boating, and we highly recommend working with Old Town Trolley if you decide to bus your guests.

Nights of Lights: We loved Haley’s Court so much that we (the bride and groom) booked a room (Unit 4!) for a birthday celebration in January a few months after our wedding. As locals, we stay away from downtown during Nights of Lights—parking is a nightmare, and the city is bustling. Haley’s Court is super on-it—they emailed us ahead of our January stay with all the information you could possibly need about navigating Nights of Lights. There were even tips in there that we were not aware of and have since started sharing with our own visitors when they come! Something great about Haley’s Court during this time (November through January) is that Vilano Beach stays un-crowded during Nights of Lights despite the chaos downtown. It’s difficult to get a dinner reservation downtown during this time, but in Vilano, we were able to walk into Michael’s without a reservation and were seated immediately. We had the best meal of our lives at Michael’s—it’s a well-known restaurant that was located in downtown St. Augustine but moved to Vilano last year ago. Finally, if you’d like to see the lights but not deal with the crowd, you can book one of the water tours that leaves from the pier at Beaches restaurant and see the lights from the water!

If you are a couple looking for a unique, picturesque, family-owned experience for you and your wedding guests, we cannot recommend Haley’s Court enough. We feel like we stumbled into the hidden gem find of a lifetime. We have already come back to stay not even three months post-nuptials and we can’t wait to keep coming back for anniversary and birthday trips for years to come!