How much are you spending on your Hawaiian wedding?

thepilotsgal

Hi all! My FI and I have been engaged for 3 months and we have just decided to have a Hawaiian wedding!!! I'm so excited!!! We went to Maui two years ago and knew that we would be back for our honeymoon. We were planning on getting married back home in New York, but about a week ago FI said to me "How would you feel about getting married in Hawaii?" Ummm... HECK YEAH!!! We are just beginning to explore this and any (I mean ANY) advice would be welcomed. Given the economy, we obviously have to keep a budget in mind. While we haven't "crunched numbers" yet, I'm hoping to keep the cost around $10,000. How much are you spending/ did you spend? Is this realistic? We were planning on a small wedding... I have a very small family and I don't know how many members of his family would be willing to make the trip, but I'm guessing around 25- 35 guests. Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much!

A.a.A.

we're hoping to do under $20k.... FI is from Hawai'i and I'm a transplant, so most of our guests are from there, but my family is coming from CA to be there too (about 30-40 guests). I'm trying not to invite many people from OOT because we're going to have a second reception in CA a few weeks after the wedding. I got my dress wayy under budget, I'm trying to DIY as much as possible, and FI and I are working on getting our reception site for free! (A friend's backyard) to cut as many of the costs as possible. We're also flying in a photographer friend, which is surprisingly cheaper! I think for your amount of guests, 10k sounds about right and very realistic... but be careful! Hotel ceremonies/receptions can be really expensive there, so try to look elsewhere!

LilSwtAzyn

We spent about $30000 but we had over 200 guests. It is definitely doable for 10000 with only 25-35 guests. Especially if you do a lot of DIY

carrieoz_76

You can absolutely have a Hawaii wedding with $10,000 for 25-35 guests. Take some time to look around and see how other Maui brides have put their weddings together to see what you like. To do that, I recommend spending some time looking at the HI bride bios, which you can find here - [url]http://community.theknot.com/cs/ks/user/default.aspx?UserName=HawaiiBrides&m=1[/url] Then you can start pricing different options. When you start looking for specific vendors, check out the All Things Maui bio which lists many vendors on Maui that people have used in the past - [url]http://community.theknot.com/cs/ks/user/default.aspx?username=peachmango&NestProfile=0[/url] I still recommend doing your own research on all vendors before you pay anyone. Check out the Better Business Bureau, search for them on google (I just type in the vendor's name and reviews), and do targeted searched on yelp.com and tripadvisor.com. And of course the girls on this board are great. I like to just see what everyone's doing and watch how they're putting each piece together to see what I might want to try myself and how it would work logistically. Welcome to the board!

pbkmom

It all depends what you are including in the 10,000? Are you counting airfare and lodging for you or your parents? A private venue will cost more because you have to rent everything. So even if the menu is $50 a plate, by the time you tack on service fees, taxes, bar, gratuities, equpment rentals, lighting, site rentals, its more like $200  a person. Then there are OOT bags, hair and makeup, photographer, dj, flowers, rehearsal or welcome dinner, clothing, etc. Pretty soon the 10,000 is 20,000. It just all adds up quickly. That said, many knotties have done a fabulous job with diy projects and flexibility. You can use an ipod instead of DJ, join Costco and get wholesale flowers through Maui Floral, choose a venue like Seawatch where you don't have to rent everything, get married on a public beach and host a dinner in a restaurant. Rent condos and do parties there, etc. These boards are a lifesaver! happy planning!

tifani27

We are doing our wedding for 7K and we have 25 guests. We are doing a lu'au as the reception which is about $90 per person, which is the bulk of the cost, but if you didn't do a Luau I am sure that for under $90 per person you could have a "typical" reception with food and music and whatever else, but yes 10K is more than doable. Oh and we also gave a $150 room credit to each of our cridal party. That is included in the 7K too. I think the reason I was able to do it so cheap was that I DIYed some stuff and I also did A TON of research I spent hours on the internet. It becomes your best friend if you want the best deal.

mauidandy

You can definitely do it...my biggest advice is not to book your ceremony/reception at one of the private estates and don't hire a wedding coordinator (you don't really need one if you're getting advice on the board and doing your own research, trust me!) You could just hire a Day Of Coordinator and save tons of $$. You can get married on the beach (free!!) and have your reception at a restaurant like the Seawatch in South Maui where your fee covers the room, tables, chairs, etc. I'm also saving money by having my bridesmaids carry colored parasols instead of bouquets, and having pineapples/candles as centerpieces instead of floral arrangements.There are tons of ways to save money, go for it!!! And welcome to the board!

diorgrl8

we're definitely trying to stay well below 10grand...we cut the guest list to 40 people which made it more manageable...and I didn't hire a DOC to save $$$. It's definitely doable, you just have to keep the guest count low. and DIY !

caiandcullen

we have about 260 guests or so, but our budget is currently about $27k. so i DEF think that under $10k is doable. plus DIY stuff is so much fun! depending on where you do it, i'm sure you can work a great deal.

thepilotsgal

Thank you all so much for your encouragement! I was so worried that $10,000 wouldn't be enough, but now I'm starting to feel much better. Thanks so much for all of your thoughts!!!

vanilla15

We definitely kept it way under $10k for about 25-30 guests.  We did a lot of DIY, including my & my bridesmaid's bouquets and centerpieces (from flowers I got at the farmer's market).  I price shopped everything...favors, napkins, fans.  Plus I didn't hire a videographer. I asked a friend to film the ceremony with is personal camera & that was good enough for me!It will take some extra work, but it can definitely be done!

tifani27

Oh and just so you know, getting married on the beach isn't free, like mauidandy said, but it is a small fee depending on the number of people you have, our beach permit was about 60 dollars I think, because we have a lot of people!

ETweet

Our budget is $15k. We're getting married at Olowalu Plantation House, which costs quite a bit, and are having about 35-40 guests. You can definately have a wedding for under $10k depending on the venue and many other factors. This board has amazing advice on how to save some cash.