For 65 years, Beach Terrace has been part of the moments our guests remember most. To celebrate, we asked you to share your Beach Terrace stories, and the response was more meaningful than we could have imagined. Over the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing a few of the stories that stayed with us, starting with Lisa’s.
Lisa's Beach Terrace Story
On May 14, 2014, my wife and I got married right on the sand in front of Beach Terrace Inn, barefoot, happy, and convinced we had pulled off the most perfect plan imaginable.
We chose Beach Terrace Inn, in California, for a reason that still matters to us. At the time, it was still not legal for us, as a same sex couple, to marry in our home state of Arizona. It became a federal law in 2015.
So this was more than a destination wedding. For us, it was us finding a place where we could stand up in front of our families and make it official.
The plan was a small beach reception down the beach, near the volleyball nets with chairs and a firepit delivered from San Diego, plus a rolling beach wheelchair from the lifeguard station so my aging dad could be right there with everyone.
And then the Carlsbad fires turned the whole day upside down. Homes were being lost nearby. It was heartbreaking, and it made everything feel heavy. I-5 shut down, so our reception delivery could not make it. The lifeguards had far more urgent responsibilities, so the wheelchair plan vanished too. Meanwhile, my wife’s parents had brought all the food, everything, and suddenly we were staring at the possibility that the reception would not happen at all and their hard work would go to waste.
That was the moment Beach Terrace stopped being “just” a beautiful beachfront hotel and became part of our family story.
My mother-in-law shared our situation with the general manager, and I will never forget what he did next. He offered us the upstairs breakfast area for our reception, at no cost(!), including the kitchen so we could prep and serve the food. No hesitation. Just kindness.
So we had our wedding on the beach in front of BTI and an unexpectedly perfect reception upstairs. We ate, laughed, and ended the day watching the sun drop into the ocean from that upper balcony. I will never forget that contrast: heartbreak in the community, and this little pocket of love held together by generosity and calm.
And my dad? Somehow he made it down all those stairs. My brother borrowed a chair from someone at the hotel for him to sit in during the short ceremony, helped him down and back up. Seeing my dad there on the sand in our family photo is still one of the clearest snapshots in my mind, especially since he is no longer with us.
Over the years, BTI has become our tradition. Our favorite rooms are the upper second and third-floor beachfront, corner rooms on the north side, the ones where we basically live on the balcony. We do not get to come as often as we would like because it is a special splurge, but whenever we do, we bring the binoculars my wife gave me as my wedding gift that night. We watch for whales and dolphins, boats and distant ships, and we always go stand on the exact spot on the beach where we said our vows.
The funny thing is, our favorite wedding photo is not posed. It is us holding hands and running straight into the waves after the ceremony like two kids, hardly able to believe we had just gotten married.
Beach Terrace Inn did not just give us a gorgeous setting. They gave us a place to start our marriage when our own state would not. Then, when the day threatened to unravel, they saved it with heart. We would be grateful, and honestly thrilled, for the chance to come back for a few nights and celebrate the place that has been part of our story from that very special day.