Wow, it has been CRAZY the past week! We are finally back on Oahu after an amazing wedding and weekend in Maui. We only had 6 guests and I planned the whole wedding in 1 month... it can be done, ladies!
Photographer- Kaua Wedding Photography- I have not yet seen the photos so I'm just going on working with him. He was very willing to answer any questions and give advice as needed for other aspects of the wedding. Sometimes he was hard to get a hold of but he is very busy. He is based out of Hana but traveled to Wailea for our wedding. There were times during the ceremony and after where he was not taking pictures and instead standing talking to his assistant. I thought that was strange and it kind of annoyed me for some reason because I wanted to be sure we caught everything on camera since not all our families could join us. I won't know if this is an issue or not until we see the pictures. We aren't really picture people so this was our splurge for the wedding- I wanted some really nice photos by a great photographer. Towards the end he seemed to get kind of annoyed because my husband and I didn't really know what to do... I mean all the poses kind of seemed the same after a while even though we weren't really going for posed photos. We are definitely uncomfortable having pictures taken haha! I won't have pro photos for a while... He didn't have an estimate but he said a sneak peek would be ready in a week or two.
Cake- Maui Wedding Cakes- Cheryl was super responsive and had the lowest pricing out of everyone (I checked with 4-5 vendors). I went with her because of the reviews. She worked with us and our budget to design the perfect cake. I also added on a groom's cake a the last minute. The grooms cake was great, chocolate with mocha filling and chocolate buttercream and ganache... it was AMAZING! We were able to pick it up right when we got in. We got a kama'aina discount (locals) for paying cash which was great. We went back the next day to pick up our wedding cake and her house was easy to find. She wasn't around so we just pulled it out of her fridge.. Kind of strange but hey it works! We opted to pick it up and not have her deliver because we had the time. For the wedding cake we had white cake with whipped filling and lilikoi and pineapple with vanilla buttercream. It tasted like lemons to me, but everyone really liked it!
Officiant- Maui Loa Weddings: Kahu Kamuela Rodrigues- I was not really impressed with him in general. We were forced to go with him because EVERY and I mean every officiant was booked on our day since we planned only a month ahead. He was the only one available at the time we wanted. He was very soft spoken on the phone and took forever to respond to emails. I had emailed him asking if he would do a rope tying ceremony for us and gave him the details and he said no problem. He was LATE for meeting us at the beach and I had to call him to make sure he was coming. Talk about stressful. Once he finally showed up he did have all the traditional Hawaiian clothing, etc. The ceremony was nice... He was very soft spoken so nobody could really hear him over the waves. I had someone filming it and you can hardly hear what he's saying which is very disappointing. The ceremony was over and I realized he had FORGOTTEN to do the rope tying ceremony. So I had to get his attention and ask him to do it and then he acted like he had never heard of it before even though he confirmed that he got my email. I was so annoyed. He did it and that was that. All in all I would say he was with us for 20 minutes... He did arrange the beach permit, etc. but I didn't think he was worth the $400. Oh well, I mean we had no choice for any other officiants. I would not recommend him. Also, his website said with that package we would get a keepsake marriage certificate which we didn't get. Our guests had no idea anything was wrong/weird which is great... But I would expect more from an officiant.
Flowers- MaryAnn at Ha'Awina Farms. I can't say enough good things about her... She was amazing! She was super helpful and so nice and easy to work with. She called me about a week before the wedding and said she couldn't get any Pikake in for our leis... I had my heart set on it but was able to call around and find Pikake here on Oahu that we carried over with us. I dropped it off the night before and she tied it and took care of our leis which was great. We also got a boutonniere, my bouquet, and guest leis from her. We didn't end up using the boutonniere because I didn't like the way it looked. The guest leis were fine, they weren't very tightly strung so you could see a good amount of the string on some of them. I think she had an issue with flowers that week because she mentioned something about how the orchids died. Flowers were not something that were super important to me... Just mine and the Mr.'s leis which were great. I didn't like my bouquet, but it's partly my fault. I told her I didn't really care what flowers they were but I wanted it to be all yellow. When we got it the flowers were mostly white with some yellow and it was mostly Peruvian Lillies with 3 orchids mixed in there. I just thought it looked weird. The yellow was an odd color and it wasn't really tropical. She doesn't have a website and only takes cash or check. She was really nice though and even offered to deliver all of our flowers to our hotel for no charge. Her pricing was super reasonable and I was happy with her.
Wedding night dinner- Sarento's. We had a great time! We are kind of a rowdy group but they had a perfect spot for us right in the front of the restaurant. It was like a raised area that was glassed in with just our table. We had plenty of room. Originally we were told we would be in a semi-private area out on the lanai. I ended up liking our table better. We didn't care about the views because it was dark when we got there. There was some miscommunication with our appetizers. We ordered 3 different family style appetizers and only got 2 which were completely the wrong thing. But it wasn't a big deal and ended up being good so I didn't really fuss over it. They charged us for 3 but took it right off when I reminded them they only brought 2. They let us drop our cake off early in the day and they had a reasonable cake cutting fee. Their event coordinator is so nice. The service was great and everyone liked their meals. We were so full! They did take a while between salads and entrees. Also I had to ask the waiter for a drink menu which I thought was strange. But overall it was great. I'm in the hospitality industry so I'm just SUPER picky when it comes to service standards haha!
Rehearsal Dinner- MonkeyPod. This was a last minute decision. We were supposed to have BBQ from the Iron Imu but he bailed on us via a text message. I found MonkeyPod and liked their menu so we just went with it. They let us bring a cake which was great. The food was good, the service was good, we had a nice time. It's kind of a laid back atmosphere. In South Maui I feel like the restaurants are either super nice or super casual so this was in the middle of the road.
Hotel for us- Grand Wailea- This was an okay hotel. The grounds are nice and the staff is okay. The room was kind of outdated though. When we went to check in we were told that we couldn't have a room with a king bed because they were out so we would have to have a room with double beds. I was like seriously? My husband is a Hilton Diamond member and they definitely didn't treat him like one. We got an amazing rate because I do some work for Hilton so we were able to get an employee rate. They didn't do anything special for us for our wedding, which is fine, but I had to beg them for a king room which we ended up getting but it wasn't as nice as it should have been for a Waldorph Astoria. They nickel and dime you for everything there but that's what resorts do. All in all the hotel was okay but only because I was staying on an employee rate. If we had used points or paid the full rate I would have been really upset. We never even got housekeeping on the day of our wedding and when we checked in our room wasn't that clean (stuff left in the fridge from previous guests, melted ice in bucket). Again, since I work in the hospitality industry I have extremely high standards especially for hotels and I would expect this place to be much nicer and more upscale. I would not stay here again unless using the employee rate. My first choice was the Marriott but they were sold out.
Condo for Family- Grand Champions- My family loved this place! We got a great military rate on a 2 bedroom condo. It was near our hotel. The condo was beautiful-- huge and outfitted with everything they could ever need. It was super nice and clean and booking was easy as well as check-in and check-out. I was only in there for a few minutes but they couldn't stop talking about how much they loved it. It was really beautiful and they had a huge kitchen, lanai, and living room. I'd stay there if we went back to the area, it was much cheaper than the hotels and just as nice if not nicer since each condo is privately owned.
Ceremony location- Paipu beach. This was a nice beach but you had to climb over some rocks to get there which was interesting in a wedding dress. There weren't that many people on the beach and no other weddings. A little bit after our wedding 2 more weddings showed up but there were none going on at the same time. We left so they could have privacy and went to the other side of the beach to take pictures during sunset which was pretty much empty. Kind of a funny story but the day after our wedding we found out that this beach is known to the locals as a nude beach... which would explain the naked guy way at the end during our ceremony. Haha! We had a good laugh about it and there was only one nude person but you couldn't really see down that far.
My hair was done by my sister-in-law who is a hairdresser. I had my makeup done by the salon at the Grand Wailea. The woman was really slow and kept talking instead of working which made me late for the wedding. It didn't really matter because the officiant was late anyways but she unnecessarily stressed me out. Hindsight 20/20 I would have just had my sister-in-law do my makeup which would have turned out the same if not better.
I'll attach an iPhone pic for y'all... hopefully professional pics will be soon!
