plan my own wedding in Maui doable?

[cocoalover]

Hello, all

 

I am thinking of planning my own wedding from Seattle and there are couples reason for the obvious, they are expensive and I just read some terrible planner experience.

 

We are having a small and very intimate wedding with family and very close friends. We are expecting somewhere around 30 people. We'll not have a rehearsal, the way I see, whatever can go wrong, let it be. The party is small enough that we can probably manage unforeseen event on the spot.

We'll not have people sit down during the ceremony, instead all guests will receive a flower lei and gather in a circle around us. We'll have a luau buffet dinner with some performance. During reception, when the performance ended, we'll just play music from my iphone.

 

For those of you who had a wedding or planning a wedding in Maui, I would appreciated it if you can tell me if I am missing anything here:

• Venue, I am thinking of the plantation house
• officiant
• florist, I found a local flower farm which is very reasonably priced.
• wedding cake
• Photography
• Videography
• Musicians to play during ceremony
• in room Hair/Makeup
• catering
• rental company for both ceremony and reception including

  1. bamboo arch
  2. buffet tables
  3. dining tables
  4. dining chairs
  5. bar table
  6. tent
  7. tent lighting
  8. padded bamboo chairs
  9. buffet and dining linens
  10. glassware, tableware, plates etc
  11. linen napkins
  12. staff setup, breakdown, clean up
  13. sound system for playing iphone

• luau performers
• lots of helping hand from bridal party and guests

I appreciated your thoughts and . Thanks.

[laura&james]

The grounds of Plantation House would be gorgeous for your ceremony. Kapalua Beach (excellent snorkeling too!) is close enough for some beach photos. We went with Marbelle for photography/videography. They did a fantastic job (shot over 400 photos and we had a hard time narrowing the images down for our album)!!! Jessica Waite (makeup) and Dan Sanchez (hair) came to my room on the day of the wedding and also offered trial appointments. They came highly recommended from other brides on this blog and really set me at ease on the wedding day. I would be VERY hesitant to plan the wedding from afar and would recommend that you contact Deanne (Precious Maui Weddings) or another Maui based wedding planner to plan some or all of the wedding. Her prices are very reasonable and she always returned my phone calls/emails within one day (even on the weekends).

[azulskies]

I'm also getting married at Olowalu! It sounds like you're pretty prepared and have a good idea of what needs to be done. If you have the time and are organized, I definitely say you could plan your wedding from afar. My wedding isn't until June but I would suggest having a day-of-coordinator. I hired a wedding planner and kind of regret it because I could've hired the vendors myself but on the day of, I think it'd be nice to have someone handle everything. I think it'd be a lot of work for you and your bridal party/family.

 

I'm just having my ceremony there so I don't have the experience with the rentals for your reception but it sounds like you're on the ball. Good luck with all your planning!

[cocoalover]

Thank you Laura and Krystall for your reply.

 

P.S. Krystall, your website is amazing. It has wealth of information, and thanks for sharing!

[Stacy015]

I think that you could probably plan it on your own. It sounds like you have really thought through what you need to do.

 

For me - it took a lot of stress off. If you would like to find a planner - you can definitely find one that doesn't charge so much... I would also say Deanne (Precious Maui Weddings) has had very reasonable prices. She even booked my location at cost - so it didn't cost any more that it would have been booking it myself. I haven't noticed any ridiculous mark up in prices.

 

But other than that - I can't think of anything you're missing. Maybe transportation if the reception will be far from the ceremony?

 

Good luck!

[AtteGirl]

Thanks for posting this question! The maui board doesn't seem to be too active so this is very helpful!

[cocoalover]

I just wanted to give everyone an update on my findings. After seems so many good reviews for Deanne (Precious Maui Weddings) I decided it wouldn't hurt to give her a call, just to see what I have to pay for the convenience of someone else doing all of the leg work. But it seems contrary to others experience, she wasn't all that responsive. I wrote her two emails, and she replied one. For the past week, we've been playing phone tags. I've also talked to WOW, A Paradise Dream Wedding, along with many other rental places, catering places, this is by far the worst, which only confirm my initial gut feeling about hiring a wedding planner. I am pretty sure that I'll do this DIY. Thanks again for all your gals help.