Destination Wedding in Maui

by Esther K. Choy

I have been married for four years now. Twenty-five guests were at our wedding in Maui and we spent the entire weekend on the same ocean front property where we held the ceremony on the lawn. For the entire weekend, we were surrounded by the clear, blue ocean of the Pacific. A corn shell blower announced the beginning of the wedding.  We ate Kailua pork and enjoyed our mini luau as a fire dancer engulfed flames from a stick of burning wood.

Even four years later, friends and family still tell me what a beautiful, romantic, and unique ceremony they witnessed. But when I think about my own wedding, my feelings are often mixed heavily with disappointment. A destination wedding can be the wedding of your dreams. You can design everything from scratch to reflect the personality of you and your partner. A dream destination wedding also requires a couple to set reasonable expectations, which was what my husband and I failed to do.

Although it wasn’t easy, we found an affordable property to accommodate most of our guests and to hold the ceremony, as well. We wanted to spend as much time as possible with them since they had spent a considerable amount of time and money to attend our wedding in Maui. We caught up on old times and made promises to see each other during the wedding and honeymoon vacation. We went surfing together and drank beer in the hot tub. No one was in a hurry to go anywhere.

The best part about the wedding planning was that we made up our own rituals. Both of us have Christian backgrounds, but neither of us was very religious. After agreeing to hire a Christian minister, the rest was up to our creativity. We incorporated a lei-giving ritual. Every guest was given a lei in the beginning of the ceremony. Then, we gave an extra lei to our mothers as a special thanks for their tireless effort in raising us to be mature adults, capable of creating our own family one day. My husband presented one to my mom and I presented one to my mother-in-law.

My father died 14 months before the wedding, so I set up a small tabletop with picture frames of my family members. The minister talked about my father’s role in my life and that his spirit lives with us every day. I draped a lei over the table and tears began streaming down my face.

The wedding gift to my husband was a hula dance that I secretly prepared and practiced for two months. I presented it to him right before dinner started. He had a slight suspicion that I had prepared something to surprise him, like a song. But nowhere in his wildest dreams could he imagine that I would perform a special hula dance for him in front of our family and friends.  He smiled so much that his jaw hurt!

If I could only focus on these fun and beautiful memories, I wouldn’t be so concerned with the things that didn’t go right. Here are some of the challenges I faced while planning our destination wedding.

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