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Planning Maui Wedding

CJKekCJKek member
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in Hawaii
Hello everyone, I'm new to the board, although I've browsed through the forums for a little while now.  Anyways, my fiance and I are planning to get married next year in Maui... and that's about as far as we've gotten, so I have a few questions for the experts on the board here.  We are thinking of getting a wedding planner because we live in Japan and it seems like it would be difficult to plan everything from here since work keeps me reasonably busy and she wouldn't be comfortable planning everything in English (she's Japanese and speaks English, but constantly dealing/planning/writing in your second language gets pretty stressful).
 
So first of all, how much more should we expect our wedding to cost if we use a coordinator?  We are planning to have a reasonably small wedding (under 40 guests, probably closer to 20-30), want to have the wedding in a church and then a reception party outside somewhere on/near the beach.  Also, I'm really showing my ignorance here, but if we keep the wedding & reception pretty simple, around what neighbourhood would or budget need to be?  Is around $5000 possible?  Under $10000?  More?

Finally, looking around at different wedding planners on Maui I found one called Napua Weddings Maui that caught my eye because they are able to deal in both English and Japanese.  I haven't seen anyone here mention that they've used them before though... has anyone ever dealt with them?
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Re: Planning Maui Wedding

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    FSForeverFSForever member
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    CJKek, Welcome and Congratulations! 
    Personally I would set my budget first. How much can you or are you willing to spend and then go from there. There are brides on this site who have planned simple weddings on a few thousand and some that have spent a lot more. We are having 16 to 20 guests and our budget for everything is $15K. That includes our Honeymoon and the travel expenses. We are not using a wedding planner but not because of costs but just because I am a planner at heart and for what we wanted I was finding that I liked talking to my own vendors and getting to know them rather than someone doing that for me. I completely agree that you should use a planner due to the language barrier. Planning a wedding is stressful enough without adding that into the mix and it is smart that you are thinking about this ahead of time. You can still use vendors you may come across just let the planner know who you would like to work with. 
    I can't help you about the church as we are marrying on the beach but I would first narrow down which part of the island you want to have the wedding on, unless there is a church that is catching your eye and you want to base everything around it. Try searching other sites like Yelp for reviews on Napua. Is there a Japanese equivilant review site? If they are bilingual maybe there are reviews in Japanese? Also give the WC a call. You really should call at least 3 WC before you make a choice. You or your fiancee will know once you talk to them who would work best for you. 
    Good luck and let us know how your planning goes. 
    Wedding Countdown Ticker Maui DIY bio!
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    bubsie77bubsie77 member
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    Hi CJKek,
    I'm also planning a wedding and had very similar questions to you in the very beginning of the planning. I'm planning a wedding in Hawaii from Europe (not sure why my avatar keeps on saying West Texas!) and I realised the cost factor is very different when you compare doing a wedding in different countries (I considered London, Tokyo, Napa and Hawaii).
    I did the same thing as FSForever suggested - I have a budget for 50-60 guests and figured out how much we can spend or willing to spend. For us, we have a buffer so if we really want something and it goes over our budget, we don't have to stress out about it.

    The wedding planners I met when I recently did my recon trip to Hawaii, they generally had 2 price buckets:
    - 1 venue (ceremony and reception)
    -  2 venues (ceremony in a church, and reception venue)
    Then this was split into the amount of people you have, if it was more than 100/150 guests, their costs will increase.
    I also know some WC that would reduce their cost by x% if your estimated number of guests doesn't accept and thus your budget was to reduce.

    Sorry I haven't heard of Napua wedding.....the only Japanese WC I have been recommended by my local friends are:
    - Sarah Aoyama (she is on the preferred vendor list in the hotel we stayed in, and happens to be the WC for my local friend getting married in Dec. She speaks fluent Japanese)
    - Farfalla Hawaii
    - Ka Nalu Wedding
    I think they're all based on O'ahu though.....but I'm sure they do weddings in Maui.

    Hope this helps!
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    ashleygoodwinashleygoodwin
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    Congratulations CJKek!!

    As a former bride myself, I would TOTALLY suggest you go with your gut and look into a wedding planner.  If not a full-service coordinator (if you feel like you can handle finding the vendors and details on your own, you just need someone to keep it all on track!).  I had a DIY wedding and although I knew exactly what I wanted, I hired someone very inexperienced in efforts to save money and just set up the day-of and since I did not do my homework and just trusted she could pull it off, things did not go according to plan and I regretted it.  :(  So my advice as a wedding photographer and past bride to all brides is to hire a coordinator of some sorts and to make sure that you trust them 100%.  It's important that they LISTEN to you and your ideas and not just sugget people they have worked with before to get the job done.  Make sense?  (Often times vendors will try to push other vendors on you and although it helps when others have worked together, it is really about what is best for you, the bride!!)

    Total side note:
    If you are looking for a bright, fun, and local photographer, check out my work, I would be honored to help out!
    Starting at $750 my packages are for 2 hours, 4 hours, 6 hours, or 8 hours and include all digital images (not to mention a great time!!)


    Check out my website to get to know me and sample my work:

    And my blog for my latest work and musings:

    If you're interested and would like to chat more, I would love to hear from you!
    My email is Ashley@AshleyGoodwin.com

    Congratulations on your engagement, it's such an amazing experience!
    Enjoy wedding planning on the islands, it's guaranteed to be a great time!
    www.AshleyGoodwin.com | Fun Hawai'i & Destination Wedding Photographer
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    ashleygoodwinashleygoodwin
    First Comment
    OH!  PS:
    I actually know an O'ahu coordinator who is extremely talented, organized, and efficient.  Traveling between islands is easy peasy, and she offers both affordable full-service planning AND day of.  Check her out, Shareen Shariq:



    www.AshleyGoodwin.com | Fun Hawai'i & Destination Wedding Photographer
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    SylviaJiSylviaJi member
    First Comment
    edited June 2012
    Hi! I am using Napua as well, and Tokie is great, professional, and easy to work with. I am having between 30-40 people for our maui wedding. I think you'll spend well over 5k, perhaps more like 10-15k if you factor in travel, lodging, etc. Good luck! PM me if you have questions. Thanks!
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    CJKekCJKek member
    First Comment
    edited July 2012
    Thank you for the replies everyone, it's all very helpful!  Just a little more detail - the question about budget was just referring to the wedding & reception, not including travel/accommodations/honeymoon.  Bubsie77, thank you especially for the list of other bilingual planners, as we'd like to follow FSForever's advice about speaking to a few before deciding.

    I also have a few follow up questions: what exactly does a WC do when planning the reception?  Recently I've been thinking that if we held it at a restaurant that is used to holding wedding receptions, would a planner really add all that much?  It seems to me that 20% of food/drinks is a rather large bill and I'm not sure exactly what they'd do.  Are there people that use a WC for the ceremony and then do the reception by themselves?  SylviaJi, are you using Napua for the ceremony and reception?

    Another quick question - what is the typical rate for a photographer (pictures only, no video)?  One place I was looking at was about $1000 for one hour, which I was thinking seemed a little expensive, but may very well be the going rate.  However, the sample pictures looked very nice, and the package includes all the negatives and license to print them yourselves though.  Also, how long did you hire your photographers for?  Would 1 hour be enough to shoot the ceremony and then pictures of us as bride and groom on the beach?

    Thank you all once again!
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    bubsie77bubsie77 member
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    In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_hawaii_planning-maui-wedding?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local Wedding BoardsForum:73Discussion:e11af3db-eecc-4676-8ca1-e167dc970746Post:847e5ac4-cf3f-4e72-95f5-d5f8a96797fb">Re: Planning Maui Wedding</a>:
    [QUOTE] I also have a few follow up questions: what exactly does a WC do when planning the reception?  Recently I've been thinking that if we held it at a restaurant that is used to holding wedding receptions, would a planner really add all that much?  It seems to me that 20% of food/drinks is a rather large bill and I'm not sure exactly what they'd do.  Are there people that use a WC for the ceremony and then do the reception by themselves? Another quick question - what is the typical rate for a photographer (pictures only, no video)?  One place I was looking at was about $1000 for one hour, which I was thinking seemed a little expensive, but may very well be the going rate.  However, the sample pictures looked very nice, and the package includes all the negatives and license to print them yourselves though.  Also, how long did you hire your photographers for?  Would 1 hour be enough to shoot the ceremony and then pictures of us as bride and groom on the beach? Thank you all once again!
    Posted by CJKek[/QUOTE]
    I am a super organised person generally but for this, I decided to hire a WC as the time difference of 12 hrs was too much for me to plan a wedding in Hawaii. If you are doing it in a restaurant, or don't feel you need a full WC, why don't you opt for a Day of WC? They get involved a month before the wedding and you literally "hand over" everything for the Wedding Day. So all you have to do is just enjoy your big day.
    I also understand that from when I was doing my research on WC costs, WCs charge you less if the wedding was in a hotel or a restaurant as they have a catering manager that help out with the planning.

    With the photographers, most of the ones I looked at (based either in Oahu or Maui) ranged from $3,500 up to $6,000 for 8 hours. All of the 1 day package included rights to reproduce photos. The lower end of the price range did not include any albums so that was additional, the higher end of the price range included a small album.
    Photos (and video) are very important to us so we're going all out and getting the whole day package!
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    CJKekCJKek member
    First Comment
    Thanks again for the replies.  Our plans are starting to firm up a little bit thanks to a lot of helpful suggestions here.  Right now we are thinking of using a WC to help with the wedding ceremony itself, and then thinking we might use a caterer to do the reception (without the help of a WC).  It seems that there are caterers that provide all the equipment necessary for an outdoor reception (tents, tables, chairs, silverware, etc.) along with the food and alcohol.  It also seems that caterers have more reasonable prices than a lot of restaurants/hotels I looked at.  Has anyone else gone done this route before?

    As for the photography, we're still not completely decided on it yet, but we have a much better idea now thanks to everyone's suggestions.
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