Celebrate LGBTQ Love in Miami

This time it’s special. You know it and feel it. So, as you start to plan what comes next in celebrating your love – be it a milestone date, proposal, engagement and/or wedding – count on Greater Miami & Miami Beach to check off every box, in style.

Celebrate Seaside, at Sunset and on the Sand

As a community that has welcomed LGBTQ visitors for decades, Miami offers a gorgeous backdrop of sea, sky, sand and sun to frame the meaningful “I will,” “I do” or the first “I love you.” Let’s take a quick tour of some of the most memory-making locations for these love-affirming moments.

Beachside Spots

Proving that the best things in life are free, Miami’s beaches, such as South Pointe Park in Miami Beach and Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park’s historic lighthouse in Key Biscayne, offer opportunities for a priceless (yet price-conscious) setting to create and capture the moment in a unique environment.

Waterfront Restaurants

Amara at Paraiso

If the melding of five-star food and Biscayne Bay views is alluring, then you might want to try Amara at Paraiso, an indoor-outdoor restaurant in the Edgewater neighborhood just north of Downtown Miami. Helmed by James Beard Award-winning chef Michael Schwartz, the restaurant offers cuisine and ambience to satisfy your extra-special occasion wish list. There’s even a “proposal” event package option.

Smith & Wollensky

Does your idea of a celebration include food and friends? Bring your favorite people together at South Pointe Park’s waterfront Smith & Wollensky restaurant. If you time your celebration just right, you can watch the skyscraper-high, mega-cruise ships sailing right by when they set sail from PortMiami as the sun sets over the skyline.

Nautical Celebration

Speaking of cruises, envision a wedding where the rhythmic embrace of the waves becomes the backdrop to your special celebration on a yacht charter from Water Fantaseas or Island Queen Cruises and Tours.

Unforgettable Wedding Locations

Exchanging Vows in Splendor

Natural surroundings are integral to what Miami offers visitors and residents. For tried, true and traditional outdoor settings that ooze storybook romance, Miami’s historic settings, such as Vizcaya Museum and Gardens in Coconut Grove, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Coral Gables, the Woman’s Club of Coconut Grove and the Deering Estate in South Dade are postcard-worthy. Along with the natural splendor of Matheson Hammock Park in Coral Gables – and its beautiful restaurant, NOMA Beach at Redfish, set in an Old Florida coral-stone building by the water – these are places that have weathered, survived and thrived throughout the years. Some might say this kind of resiliency creates an auspicious beginning for coupledom.

Sacred Wedding Spaces

For ceremonies filled with joy and spirituality, couples can affirm their love within the context of faith at the Ancient Spanish Monastery in North Miami Beach, a 12th-century monastery cloisters brought from Spain in 1924. Another venue with unique architecture is Temple Beth Shmuel, the centerpiece of the Cuban-Hebrew Congregation's warm and welcoming community in Miami Beach that advocates for integration and equality. The LGBTQ-inclusive Temple Judea in Coral Gables will embrace you and your beloved under their chapel chuppah canopies for a celebration that echoes of the ages and resonates with meaning.

Building a Life Together

If you and your special person are especially excited about great feats of architecture, the sky’s the limit in Miami. There’s no shortage of stunning venues where you can host your big event. The truly epic Kimpton EPIC Hotel, set at the mouth of the Miami River in Downtown Miami, has drop-dead gorgeous views. Landmark locations in Miami Beach, such as the Frank Gehry-designed New World Center and Herzog & de Meuron’s 1111 Lincoln Road, an open-concept parking garage offering 360-degree views, are amazing spaces that will impress your guests. If retro glamour is more your vibe, the oceanfront Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel of 1950s Rat Pack fame, the Gatsby-era Historic Alfred I. DuPont Building in Downtown Miami and The Biltmore Hotel Miami - Coral Gables bring fairy-tale fantasy to life – especially if you’re celebrating the occasion with a large group of friends.

Celebrating Outside the Lines

Traditional not your thing? You can check that box off in Miami, too – in many fun, funky and cheeky ways. Celebrations at the Wynwood Walls outdoor street-art museum in Wynwood are as hip as they are colorful. And what’s Miami without a Latin-tinged celebration of everything Cuban? Try the Cubaocho Museum & Performing Arts Center or Ball & Chain in Little Havana. You can the knot at the crown jewel of Historic Overtown, the 110-year-young Black Archives Historic Lyric Theater Cultural Arts Complex. Prefer the catwalk to a church aisle? Special occasions are especially lively at R House in Wynwood and at Palace Bar & Restaurant in Miami Beach. These are restaurants where drag performances – complemented by cocktails and food – bring capital-letter “GAYNESS” to your special day.

Bling! Getting Ready Is Half the Fun

Shopping for the right wedding outfit, invitation or ring in Miami is far easier than finding “THE one,” especially when nearly everything you need for your special day is concentrated in one place: Miracle Mile in Coral Gables. Known as “the City Beautiful,” this is one of the most historic neighborhoods in Greater Miami & Miami Beach. It was developed in the 1920s, inspired by Mediterranean, Spanish and Italian villages. The Miracle Mile promenade has been the destination for all the accoutrements of a love celebration since the mid-1940s. With its charming and very walkable street-level stores and restaurants, the actual half-mile “Mile” is wedding prep central.

Navigating "I Do's" in Miami

The Fine (Legal) Print

Like anywhere else, if you’re getting married in Miami, you’ll have to make time to dot the i’s in your “I do’s” by registering for a marriage license and making time for either a four-hour premarital course or a three-day waiting period. You can even register at the Miami Beach District Court, which is located in the same beautiful, Art Deco-style building as the LGBT Visitor Center. Piece of wedding cake, right?

You can find more information about obtaining a marriage license in Greater Miami & Miami Beach on the Miami-Dade County Clerk of the Courts website.