Wedding DJ at Veterans Park in Oak Island, NC

The Space

Veterans Park sits on the Intracoastal Waterway in Oak Island, and the ground itself carries a name change worth knowing: the town called it Waterway Park until 2015, when it was renamed to honor members of the armed forces. Phase One of the park’s construction took about eight months to complete, and Phase Two later added a picnic shelter and expanded the park’s memorial wall.

That memorial wall, a brick tribute to veterans, was fully renovated and expanded again in 2022, and it sits alongside a butterfly garden and open lawn space within the park. On the park’s east side, environmental regulations required a living shoreline built with marsh plants and an oyster reef rather than a hardened bulkhead, which keeps that stretch of waterfront looking natural rather than engineered.

Capacity & Layout

The park’s layout centers on its waterfront features: a 100-foot boardwalk runs along the bulkhead on the Intracoastal Waterway, and a 70-foot fishing pier extends out from it with its own covered area. A couple hosting a small outdoor ceremony or gathering here works with that linear waterfront footprint rather than a defined room or lawn built specifically for events, since the park’s design centers on fishing and walking rather than banquets.

The picnic shelter added during Phase Two gives a group a covered gathering spot away from the pier itself, useful if weather turns during an outdoor event. Because this is a public park rather than a private venue, any wedding or reception held here works around the park’s own layout and hours instead of a floor plan designed around a single private event.

Amenities

The fishing pier’s covered, shaded section is fully handicap-accessible, and the pier itself includes fish cleaning stations and benches for visitors. A restroom is available on site, and parking is provided for park visitors and any event guests arriving by car, which matters for a location that otherwise draws its traffic from walkers and anglers rather than event parking lots.

Because Veterans Park operates as a public facility rather than a bookable private hall, its amenities lean toward what a park needs, benches, a picnic shelter, a butterfly garden, rather than what a wedding reception typically needs, such as a kitchen or a dedicated bar. Any couple planning a full reception here should expect to bring in outside equipment and catering rather than relying on on-site infrastructure.

Location & Getting There

The park sits at 1408 E Yacht Drive in Oak Island, directly on the Intracoastal Waterway, and it stays open from sunrise to midnight, seven days a week, which gives an evening event more room on the clock than a park with a fixed closing time earlier in the day.

An outdoor waterfront park like this one is about as open a setting as a DJ works in: no walls, a boardwalk and pier built from hard decking, and open water on one side, so sound has nothing to bounce off and nothing to hold it in, and equipment has to be set up with wind and moisture off the Intracoastal Waterway in mind rather than the acoustics of an enclosed room.