WOW!! I cannot believe that those two weeks are over and we are back in San Francisco.. time flies!
I had the most amazing two weeks of my life and was so incredibly happy with how everything turned out. I will post some photos soon but I wanted to be sure to give you all some reviews of our special day. I'm a MRS!
Welcome Drinks - Hula Grill Outrigger Waikiki on the Beach; A+
We hosted our guests on Tuesday night at the Hula Grill. We had spoken to them beforehand to say that we would be coming in with a big group around happy hour and would have a bar tab set up that people could order drinks against. We turned up, they knew we were coming, set us up with our own little section and a server and the night went so smothly! Everyone was very appreciative of the bar tab and with the drinks being set during happy hour, it was all very reasonable!
Rehearsal Dinner - Waikiki Yacht Club; A
My fiance's parents organised the rehearsal dinner and seeing as they are yacht club members in NY, it wasn't a problem to host at the Waikiki Yacht Club. They set us up in an outdoor area with a canopy and pretty christmas lights all around. The dinner was buffet style and the food while not amazing, was perfectly decent. The server for the drinks was a little slow and it took a while to get a mai tai in my hand but all in all, the staff, food and especially location were all great!
Flowers - Watanabe Floral; A
My mums girlfriends and myself DIY'd all the flowers for our wedding including centrepieces, bouquets, boutonnieres, cake decoration etc. We ordered some of the flowers beforehand (lots of babys breath and hydrangeas) and then planned to just shop around in their wholesale warehouse and get whatever else we needed. We got there and it was even better than I had expected! They had sooo much stuff! And a giant walk in cooler with fresh cut flowers.
When they wheeled out my ordered flowers however, the hydrangeas that came out were not the ones I had wanted. They were very apologetic and raced around the entire store to make sure we had enough of what I had orginally wanted and discounted the price! I think it was just a mis communication as can happen through phone calls and emails! I would just be sure to send photos of everything you are ordering to be sure you are on the same page.
They were wonderful there and we got all the flowers for the entire ceremony and reception for just over $600! Which I thought was awesome!
Hair and Makeup - Faith and Beauty; A
I used Gemina from Faith and Beauty and she was such a doll. She was sweet and funny and used totally quality makeup and products. She listened to what I wanted and my makeup was flawless. We did have a couple of issues with my hair that we went over at the trial and I was happy with the result. On the wedding day, we seemed to be having the same issues, so when I mentioned it she was quick to fix it for me. The only thing I would say is that she was a little late to both the trial and the actual wedding day. It was definitely a traffic/elevator issue but after being late at the trial I was hoping she would leave a little more time for the wedding day. She ended up being about 20 minutes late which just pushed everything back that little bit. But all in all, her work is amazing, my makeup and hair stayed in place all day and night and she was sweet as can be!
Transport - Royal Star; B-
We used Royal Star for all transport throughout the wedding and the wedding week. We hired a van for the rehearsal, a limo for the grooms party, two huge buses for our guests and a van for my bridal party. We spent a larggeee amount of money with this company!
So on the wedding day when I got a phone call from the van to say that he was waiting for me downstairs and 'WOULD NOT WAIT' I was pretty mad! I didn't even have my dress on because of our slight shift in timeline and they were at the time completely ready to leave me high and dry. I was not impressed at all!
The staff and the actual buses and vans were very nice, clean and on time but that definitely left a sour taste in my mouth!
They were also pretty expensive but there wasn't a whole lot of choice in terms of transport for our guests seeing as our venue was about 40 minutes from Waikiki.
Venue - Ko'olau Ballrooms; A/B
I am giving an A to the venue itself, it is absolutely breathtaking! I am so glad that we decided to have our ceremony and reception here for the amazing views alone. We used the outdoor garden for the ceremony and the glass ballroom for our reception and they were beautiful!
The coordinator that we worked with there however was not. She was very spacy, verrrrryyy slow to reply (sometimes taking months to respond), would send me information from other peoples weddings, didn't show up to our pre arranged conference call times and called me by the wrong name about 80% of the time. It was definitely a source of stress in the wedding planning process and had we not had our DOC, I think I would have pulled the plug and moved locations. I am sooo glad we didn't though!
Totally beautiful and unique location and I highly recommend if you are going to work with an outside planner.
Wedding Planner DOC - Gina with Divine Weddings and Events; A+
Oh Gina, she was a breath of fresh air! Gina was our DOC and started working with us from about 2 months out from the wedding. She was so great! She was to the point, took my concerns about the Ko'olau planners and totally aleviated them. She was straightforward, so organised and just a pleasure to work with. I would definitely recommend her!!
Officiant - Rev. Boyd 'Luna' Lyons; A+
We used Rev. Lyons after our initial officiant sadly passed away a few months before our ceremony. Rev. Lyons was a very close friend of our original officiant and kindly offered to take over all of his clients. We found him to be very kind, organised and put us all at ease. He came to the rehearsal and went over the basic run down of the ceremony. He was thorough but also really funny and light hearted. He agreed to do the ceremony that we had already figured out with our original officiant but put his own kind words in as well. We really really liked him and everyone had nothing but kind words to say about our ceremony.
DJ - Troy Michael; B+/A
Troy was awesome in terms of the music, he got a solid dance party happening and played a bit of everything. I loved loved the dancing part of our reception and we only heard good things about the music!
As an emcee, he was a tiny bit annoying. We had talked to him about keeping it very informal and that we had the couple of things we wanted to do 'first dance, cake cutting etc' and that besides that we just wanted open dancing, At one point it felt like we were being called up for something every couple of minutes!
His music was great but I felt like the emcee was just a bit much for us!
Photographer - Eric Wehner; A
Working with Eric was very easy. He is a laid back, nice and really genuine guy. He made us feel comfortable and didn't ask us to do any poses that made us feel awkward.
He did seem to get a tiny bit overwhelmed at one point because of our limited time but overall I thought he was great. We haven't seen the pics yet so I'll let you know!
Videographer - Manoa Productions; A
Charlene and Colin are a husband and wife team and they were so lovely. They were unobtrusive which was very important to us. They are also very flexible in terms of price and were willing to work with us on our limited budget. I haven't seen the video yet but I have high hopes!
Guest Accomodation - Outrigger Waikiki on the Beach; A+
This hotel was amazing! It was fun, laid back, lots of restaurants and bars to choose from, right in the middle of everything and totally reasonable. Our guests loved it there and raved about their stay. Would definitely go back!
So there it is! Overall, everyone was pretty great! I had an absolute blast and I can't believe everything went *mostly to plan! I wish I could do it all over again!!!!!
I'll post some pics soon.