Do not get married on Florida-Georgia weekend in Jacksonville
The Florida-Georgia game weekend fills Jacksonville hotels, roads and vendor calendars. Here is what it does to a wedding, and which other weekends have the same problem.
Every year a few couples book a Jacksonville wedding on the Florida-Georgia weekend without realising what it is, and every year it costs them money, guests, or both.
If you are not from here: the Florida-Georgia game is an annual college football rivalry traditionally played in Jacksonville, and the city effectively hosts a festival around it. It is one of the largest single events on the local calendar.
Check the current year’s schedule before you rely on any of this. The game’s location has been subject to change, and stadium work and scheduling agreements have moved it in some years. Confirm the date and venue for your specific year rather than assuming, because if it is not in Jacksonville that year, none of the below applies.
What it does to a wedding
Hotel rooms disappear, and the ones left cost triple. Room blocks for that weekend go early and expensive. Guests travelling in will either pay several times the normal rate or stay far enough out that they leave your reception early.
Getting anywhere takes twice as long. Roads around downtown and the stadium are congested from the morning onward, with closures and rerouting. If your ceremony and reception are in different places, or your photographer is coming from the Beaches, build in real delay.
Half your guest list has divided attention. This is the underrated one. A meaningful share of your Florida and Georgia guests will care about this game, and a wedding scheduled against it competes with something people planned their year around.
Vendors are booked or priced up. Not just DJs. Transportation, hair and makeup, and photography all feel it.
The other weekends worth checking
Florida-Georgia is the famous one, but Jacksonville has several weekends that create the same problems:
- The Players Championship week in Ponte Vedra, which fills every hotel room in St. Johns County and clogs the roads around Sawgrass
- Home game weekends downtown generally, which affect parking, traffic and hotel pricing
- Spring break weeks at the Beaches, where beachfront venue availability and hotel rates both move sharply
- Any major festival or race weekend near your venue
What to actually do
Before you sign a venue contract, pull up the calendar for your date and search what else is happening in Jacksonville that weekend. It takes five minutes. Then ask your venue directly whether anything large is scheduled nearby, because they will know.
If your date is already locked on a big-event weekend, it is fixable but it needs planning: book the room block immediately, warn guests early and specifically, pad every travel window in the timeline, and consider an earlier start.
None of this means the wedding will not be good. It means the logistics need a plan that a normal Saturday in March does not.