Fast forward 12 months...

JayBee · July 4, 2009

So I totally forgot to post all sorts of things to the blog, and as you can imagine a lot has happened! Besides planning a DW 5000 from home, Both FH and myself have been laid off, but thanks to his amazing skills (and terrific severance package) we've actually prospered. Plus I haven't had to go back to work, so it was a very much needed break from a stressful and discouraging job.

I haven't done much wedding-wise since getting laid off in March, actually. It seems like everything happened either 10 months before or 1 month before the wedding! Here's what happened with the WC & site search:

I really didn't want a resort wedding, which made the search for a site much more difficult. Most vacation rentals won't allow for large groups on the property, and those that do are tens of thousands of dollars to rent, because you have to rent them for the entire week. None of my top choices would allow for a ceremony or reception for more than 20, and those that would allow for more than 20 were either way too expensive, or not in a location that I liked (we are very specific about where on kauai we want to be married). I was about to give up on Kauai altogether, and started contacting resorts on Maui. The only resort on kauai that I liked was the site of FH's cousin's wedding in February, and I didn't want to just repeat it 6 months later. So the search continued...

Finally, I contacted the owner of an estate called Moloa'a Shangrila thru VRBO.com. The place was large (10 acres) and gorgeous, but it wasn't an ocean view, so it was less expensive than most. We actually didn't even need to rent it for the entire week, but we decided to anyway. Our plan was to have our wedding party and friends stay w/ us there, and help our families find other vacation rentals nearby. The owner of the property was absolutely the sweetest people, and she even recommended a WC for us. I contacted Diana Gardner at alohana weddings. She got right back to me, and she had got everything lined up for us in no time! My only concern is that I still don't know what we're spending on flowers, which I think she does herself! Even though we have to pay her a pretty hefty fee, I feel that she's doing a great job and will make our wedding an amazing, beautiful event!