About Navarre Beach
Navarre beach is a small town on the east side of a very thin island on the gulf coast called Santa Rosa island. The west side of Santa Rosa is where you can find Pensacola Beach (which is where all the beachside restaurants in the area are located). The area is easy to navigate (part of the reason we chose it); there is one main road that runs the length of the island, with Pensacola Beach on one end, Navarre Beach on the other, and a nature preserve and a few public beaches in between.
We'll be having the ceremony on the beach at Navarre Beach Park (a county park), which is the East-most publicly accessible point of the island. We'll be hosting the reception at a covered pavilion right next to the beach; no worries about driving from the wedding to the reception or any of that kerfuffle.
There are several nice, if typically touristy, restaurants in Pensacola Beach, where Anne and I expect to be staying. We are hoping to host a dinner the night before the wedding at Hemmingway's, a great restaurant that Anne and I went to the last day we were scouting beach locations. There are of course several beaches and state parks on the island, and there is a fair-sized causeway from Pensacola to Pensacola Beach (which has a toll, but it's not especially steep) which should make it easy for people to stay in less expensive off-beach hotels if they so desire.
A word of warning: There is a city on the way between Pensacola and Pensacola Beach called Gulf Breeze. Word has it that the city of Gulf Breeze loves handing out speeding tickets. Take care and watch your speed while driving through Gulf Breeze.