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.
Property
I wouldn’t put a price tag on having everyone together in the same spot, but dealing with the landlord was less than pleasurable. It turned out that many property owners on the island frown upon renting their houses to a large group of people who would hold a big ‘party’ of some sort. They don’t want to offend their neighbors, which is very understandable. So we had to do a lot of promising and relationship building to get the owners to trust us, which they eventually did. But we didn’t consider that we might not be able to trust them.
We ended up paying for a “master bedroom” without a bathroom. Paid for a loft “room” when it was actually a raised ceiling with a bed on it. Because the wedding was held on their property, the landlords had automatically assumed that they were invited to our wedding reception. At a $100 per plate, we did our best to tactfully ‘dis-invite’ them. Perhaps it was a coincidence, but they told our dancers that they had to end the luau early because they were disturbing the neighbors. I don’t even want to think about how much we paid for the luau.
Minister
We had never met Matt, our minister, before the wedding, but we spoke to him on the phone several times. He was recommended by my wedding coordinator and sounded like a serious, yet laid-back guy. We spoke to him together over the phone to get to know each other. My fiancé and I felt comfortable with his approach to marrying couples and his general outlook on life.
We agreed that he would arrive 30 minutes prior to the wedding, but he showed up an hour late. My sunset wedding in Maui started 35 minutes behind schedule. The first time I met the minister who would bring my husband and I together in marriage was at the end of an aisle of scattered rose petals. It was all a blur by that time. The only thing I remember thinking was, “Oh, so that’s Matt. He looks a lot shorter than I had expected.”
Photography
If there is anything you need to know about sunsets in Hawaii is that it happens as if someone just turns off a light switch. In minutes, the sun completely drops out of sight from the face of the earth. So, capturing the “magic hour” is crucial. Well, we had no luck capturing that time because the ceremony started so late. My photographer did his best with the time and the cooperation from my guests.
I had a great wedding photographer. He had a great personality, which is very important for a wedding photographer. He was able to get people together, and inform them of when and where they needed to stand for the photos. He was also a good improviser. Even though my wedding location was completely new to him, he was able to create beautiful memories. He captured the light of the rainbow overarching the crystal blue ocean above our heads during the ceremony.
Unfortunately he forgot all the specific instructions. He didn’t remember that I specifically asked for black and white photos. He asked me to look through magazines and clip examples of photocompositions that we liked so he could take similar photos for our wedding. When we got the proofs, we didn’t see anything that resembled what we showed him. Luckily, we still like the pictures that he took.
Wedding Coordinator
If I had the chance to do it all again, I would definitely set a larger budget for a wedding coordinator. But, I would be very careful with my selection. The mistake I made was that I went with the most affordable wedding coodinator who gave me the best deal possible. Why would that be a mistake? Because it turned out that my wedding coordinator had very little experience in the industry, and often didn’t have the ‘heart’ to say no to me when she needed to. So she made a lot of empty promises, which she didn’t keep. In the end, she never even thought of a plan B in case of rain, even though we were getting married on the side of Maui that receives more rainfall during the summer. She was running out of both time and resources before the wedding and started ordering my friends to run errands for her. She kept saying to them, “Please, it’s for Esther!”
Take away
As a bride, your wedding is the most important event. All your vendors will do their best to make you feel that they are here to serve you. Unfortunately, that is only part of the truth. For a business to thrive, vendors need lots of brides. They think all of their events are important, so it is up to the vendor to prioritize. If you don’t have a wedding coordinator or a competent one, it’s your job to make sure that your vendors stay on top of everything.
For a once-in-a-lifetime event, it really is not worth it to spread your attention over all of the details of the wedding. Things will come up, but good vendors will help you enjoy the special moments that will occur throughout your day.
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