Aloha! My siblings and I (pretty much me) are planning a surprise wedding for our parents' for their 35th wedding anniversary in Dec 2010. They are Catholic but never got married in the church; due to financial and familial constraints they were civilly married. Only a few people attended, nothing big or fancy, just the basics. I don't even think they got each other rings. They never did have a church wedding and in the eyes of the Catholic religion you are not technically considered married if you weren't married in the church. My mom is about to celebrate her 72nd birthday and is not getting any younger. They have worked hard all their lives and have never traveled anywhere other than to their native countries, mom (Philippines) and dad (Thailand). They've always wanted to go to Hawaii, so I figured this would be a great opportunity to have a small family vacation, while celebrating their 35th anniversary. Since it would be their first time there, I figured Oahu would be a good place to go (Maui is my favorite island though, especially since I got engaged there
). We plan to have between 15-20ppl. Again, it would all be a surprise for them. Having planned my own wedding, I obviously have experience in the planning of it all, but since this would be a destination wedding, I need some help w/ venue locations and vendors. I'd like to have something inclusive (i.e. food, flowers, venue, etc.) which may or may not be cost effective; a Catholic church somewhat nearby to the venue would be great as well. Their anniversary is in early December and I figured we would go there during that month and possibly spend Christmas there. We would be there for 1-1 1/2 wks. We'd like to keep it under $10,000 if possible. Questions: 1) How is the weather in December, particularly mid December? 2) When is the best time to start looking and booking flights? 3) Any recommendations for local Catholic Churches in the Waikiki area, preferably not so modern looking? 4) Recs for affordable DOCS? 5) I'm sure I have a lot to consider, but any specific considerations/recs? I know I shared a lot but I wanted to give some background. The Knot community boards, especially the "Northern Cali" board was VERY helpful in planning my wedding. I LOVED all my vendors and all of them were recommendations from knotties. I hope to have the same results with planning this special occasion for my parents this time again. Thank you in advance if you got this far, for taking the time to read this and also for sharing your thoughts or recommendations.