| About our wedding:
|
|
We're Maui'd!!!!
It was a perfect day with gorgeous (albeit hot & bright!) blue Maui skies...Sixteen of us gathered at The Seawatch in Wailea, Maui to celebrate one of the most important days in our lives.
Professional photos by Lashawn Photographic:
A handful of non-professional photos...
Honeymoon photos by Lashawn Photographic:
Post-Wedding Shindig (At-Home-Reception) In L.A:
We transformed our loft & parking lot in Downtown L.A. into party central to host our hip, urban cocktail party AHR. Strings of twinkly globe lights and DIY centerpieces added a festive touch, while local taco stand and some talented young caterers symbolized what Isaac & I like best: good food. It was an awesome night full of good friends, good conversation, and good grub.
Getting ready with Velcro-Roller power!
My DIY centerpieces using square vases I bought downtown & roses from Costco...I'm very proud of myself!
We opted for these most adorable (and yummy!) cupcakes from Leda's in Sherman Oaks...i couldn't resist!
LA is not LA without grubbin' tacos, so we hired a local taqueria to make fresh street style tacos for our guests
Our friend, an up-and-coming local caterer made the most yummy parmesan crisps w/ edamame hummus, ahi poke chips and crabcakes for our hors d'oevres spread.
A friend of ours helped us play "bartender"...
Good times, good times...
Vendor Reviews:
Coordinator-Deanne, Precious Maui Weddings: I'm so glad we worked with Deanne. She has such a calm, cool and collected demeanor which helped put all of us at ease for what would have been an otherwise stressful event. Pre-wedding, she always answered my calls and emails right away and made sure she confirmed everything the few days before the wedding. On the wedding day, she orchestrated everything beautifully and everything from making sure Isaac and I didn't see each other to making sure the guests were seated to the processional to the entire ceremony went off without a hitch. My bouquet & our leis were also beautiful. You can get comprehensive packages thru Deanne or like, us you can choose a la carte services--you just have to pay a service fee for each service/vendor she provides.
Photographer-Lashawn Photographic: Lashawn is awesome! Not only does he take great photos but he's got a really laid back attitude which makes everyone feel comfortable. He interacted really well not only with us but with my family and guests too. Lashawn also did our Honeymoon shoot and we had so much fun at the beach with him! Best thing is our photo CD's were waiting for us when we got back from our honeymoon. The only thing I wish we had done was been more specific about "Must-Take" photos. We did give him a brief list of things we wanted photographed...one of which was family shots, but on the day-of, everything went by so fast that we didn't have a chance to remind him of some of the more specific shots we wanted. I wish, for example, that I'd gotten a formal shot alone with my Mom and with my brother.
Ceremony & Reception Venue-The Seawatch: The Seawatch is a beautiful location that I'd recommend to anyone. Our ceremony took place on the Lower Knoll...I was a teeny bit worried at first upon discovering that it was right next to the main road leading up to the golf course, but when the ceremony actually took place, I didn't even notice...it was gorgeous with its trees & ocean backdrop and perfect for the intimate ceremony we had in mind. The Lower Pond area was also perfect for our group size and was shaded from the sun yet still having an outdoor setting. Food and service were wonderful...our server even helped us carry stuff to the car afterwards! Susan, the special events manager was also extremely helpful. Yes, she is a bit abrupt in her emails, but she is a busy, busy woman yet she always managed to answer our questions right away and had set everything up perfectly!
Cake- Maui Wedding Cakes: It kinda sucks that Maui Wedding Cakes is the exclusive cake vendor for the Seawatch, but our cake was beautiful & delicious! As many of you know, they don't answer emails in a very timely manner...it usually took an average of 5 days to hear from them, but don't worry, they do a great job!
Florist-Maui Blooms: We had Maui Blooms do our reception flowers only since our coordinator took care of our ceremony flowers. Our centerpieces were beautiful and pretty much exactly what we wanted with the exception of one thing...on our first contract, Annette had mistakenly put pink & white cymbidiums instead of pink & green cymbidiums. I emailed her back to correct the colors and she confirmed, but the flowers still ended up being pink & white. They were still beautiful in pink & white, however, so no complaints on our end.
Hairstylist-Dan Sanchez: I love Dan! He styled my hair exactly how I'd imagined it. He's also got a great sense of humor--we had so much fun laughing and talking about so many things!
Makeup-Jessica Waite: Jessica is a wonder with makeup! My biggest concern was covering up the dark sun spots I have on my cheek and she made my skin look flawless without looking overly made up! The makeup also held up really well in all the heat. Like Dan, she is also alot of fun to work with & talk to. Hit her up for restaurant suggestions! Like me, she is a "foodie snob" and will give you a ton of recommendations for delicious local eats!
Nails-David's Happy Nails, Kihei: I went to David's Happy Nails because the price was right...$38 for a mani/pedi which is inexpensive by Maui standards. It's a no-nonsense place--not a huge selection of colors, but they did a good job on my nails. The only thing that kind of bugged me was that she had me walk to the back room to rinse my hands before she applied polish and it didn't look very clean back there.
Minister-Rev. Adam Gomes: Rev. Gomes performed a beautiful ceremony for us, adding his own touch of aloha and sense of humor. After the ceremony, he rode off in his Harley. OK, now what is cooler than that?
Shower/Welcome Lunch Restaurant-Cafe O'Lei Kihei: Delicious, reasonably priced Creative-American/Pacfic-Rim cuisine in a hip setting. It's in a stip mall on S. Kihei Rd., but the inside is very inviting with sheer fabrics draped everywhere and walls painted in rich jewel tones. We had a private area with cool arched doorways which was perfect for our party size. Service was also very attentive.
Farewell Dinner Restaurant-Ma'alaea Grill: Tasty & beautifully presented food in a restaurant with a harbor view. This is another one of Cafe O'Lei's restaurants so you can't go wrong. Kristopher, the manager, was great to work with--he helped us customize a prix-fixe menu that was within our tastes & budget. We sat in a semi-private area with a wonderful lanai area that overlooked the harbor--very festive at night with its tiki torches & live jazz music in the background.
Rental Car-Alamo: We rented both our Maui and Oahu cars through Alamo, though the Maui car was Alamo via Priceline and the Oahu car was Alamo via Costco. We got what we thought was a great deal thru priceline--$15 a day for a Mid-Size car. But what we didn't know was that Alamo charges almost $10 a day to add an additional driver, therefore making our savings not all that huge. If you rent thru Costco, however, they include an additional driver for free. As for the cars, they worked and they were clean! There was also a pretty long line at the Maui location, so be prepared. (If you own your own business or have a corporate account, join Quicksilver so you can avoid the lines)
Pre-Wedding Condo (Pam)-Koa Lagoon, Kihei: We loooooved this place! All units are oceanfront and are very reasonably priced! Our 2b/2b condo was exteremely clean and had been recently remodeled and had berber carpet, granite counter, tile entrance, updated baths, etc. We loved sitting on the lanai every evening to watch the sun set. Linda & Farilyn in the office are also awesome--they let me ship several boxes of wedding stuff to their office and kept everything safe for us until we arrived.
Pre-Wedding Condo (Isaac)-Kihei Kai: Karen, the owner/manager, is so friendly & hospitable! We had originally rented the condo for an extra night b/c Isaac's nephew was supposed to stay with him, but when he wasn't able to come at the last minute, I called Karen to see if we we could cancel one night. I didn't think we'd be able to get a refund since it was so last minute, but Karen told me that "she'd see what she could do" with the unit owners. When we arrived, she'd left a note saying that they'd refunded us for one night. She'd also left Isaac a box of chocolate covered macadamias in his condo as a welcome gift. The unit itself was a little outdated, but it was clean, had a great lanai and very reasonably priced. (A little over $100 a night for a unit that was steps the ocean)
Post wedding hotel-Maui Sheraton: A beautiful resort on even more beautiful Ka'anapali Beach. We'd gotten a great deal on pur room thru Priceline and were upgraded for free to an Ocean View room. They even had a free bottle of champagne waiting for us in our room since we were honeymooners. We wish the resort had a little more going on at night--the poolside bar closed down quite early and the whole place was very quiet by 9pm. We ended up walking over to Whaler's Village to the Hula Grill for drinks since they were open until 11pm. Be aware of the $17-something a day resort fee that they will appear on your bill at check out though.
Oahu hotel-Marriott Waikiki: A nice hotel in the hustle & bustle of Waikiki Beach. We also got upgrated for free to an Ocean View room. The worst thing about this hotel is the parking...costs $15 a day to park in a lot that is really crowded & cramped and that gets full pretty quickly. (If it's full they let you valet at the self park rate, but still..)
Travel Agent-Mary Heubner, The Travel Store of Kona: Mary is such a sweetheart. She got us a great deal on our AA tickets to Hawaii when airfare was still very high. I did have to call her to remind her to follow up on a few things, but in general she was very on top of it. She always emailed me whenever AA changed anything with our flights.
Invitations-Savvy Designs: We loved our invitations! They had a tropical, Hawaiian feel yet were still elegant. Ruth was great to work with, answering emails & sending proofs in a timely manner. She did scare me once however by sending the wrong tracking number to me...I thought our invitations were never going to get to us. I emailed her freaking out, turns out she had just given me the wrong tracking number. *Phew!*
Alterations (Los Angeles Area)-Lady Jane: I absolutely adore Jane! She is so sweet and really knows what she's doing. Prices are very reasonable too! I paid about $160 for hem, bustle, a little taking in at the sides, a new zipper and attaching my veil to a new comb. She even brought my dress to the cleaners & picked it up for me!! Only thing is she is extremely busy and is a tiny lady w/ a teeny tiny shop, so she tends to take a longer than usual time...be prepared to leave your dress for a couple if not a few months with her.
Dress Salon (Los Angeles Area)-R-Mine Bridal Couture: I got my Pronovias Babel for a great off-the rack deal here. It was in great condition but had a broken zipper. They offered to fix the zipper for free, but did a really crappy job with it...the zipper they put in broke when I tried it on at home. When I brought the dress to Lady Jane, she told me that they had put a really cheap zipper in. I'm convinced it's because I told them I was going to take it elsewhere for alterations. They also said it's their policy to have a sales associate with you in the fitting room at all times so it kinda sucked to have to be nekkid in front of some random chick--no privacy at all! If I hadn't gotten the great deal on my dress from R-Mine, I would have never bought my dress from here!
Shoe Dyeing (Los Angeles Area)-Pasquales Shoe Repair: Lucky magazine calls them the best shoe repair in LA. Well...Great (and I mean great) service but the dye job they did on my shoes was hardly noticeable and expensive. I should have checked them more but I had to rush off to an appointment so I paid $55 dollars for nothing. I would have brought them back but I was running out of time and they're on the other side of town. I ended up dyeing the shoes myself with green tea which cost me next to nothing.
Fun Pre-Wedding Stuff:
Isaac and I met years ago at the Beverly Center. Funny enough, he proposed to me across the street from the big fashion-plate mall in the same spot where we took one of our first walks together. How absolutely L.A. of us! LOL!
E-pics:
(photographed in our hometurf of Downtown Los Angeles by our friends A. Muniz and T. Do)
The Wedding:
We'll be married at The Seawatch in Wailea, Maui, under the (hopefully!) turquoise-blue morning skies.
Our lunch reception will be held at the Seawatch's Lower Pond area...
Our headcount is only 18, so I wanted to do one long rectangular table instead of a couple of separate ones. Here are some of the looks that I like:
Place Cards, Menu Cards and Place Settings:
Paper-Source is the best for color coordinating! As you can tell, I went crazy with their chartreuse paper & accessories!
More paper stuff:
Our DIY Save The Date postcards. I did the "Shag"-esque artwork of us by hand and FI fixed everything up and did the layout on the computer.
Invitations:
We wish we had enough time to do DIY invites, but because we didn't, we decided to purchase invitations from Honolulu-based Savvy Designs. We loved the simplicity & elegance of their island-themed invitations. We had narrowed our choices down to these three designs:
We ended up going with the "Old Hawaii" style, but in a light champagne pocketfold with light green accents.
My attempt at calligraphy:
Our DIY Thank-You cards using cardstock from Paper-Source and rubber stamp heat embossing:
Flowers:
Bouquet ideas:
Ceremony Flowers and Decor:
The best thing about doing a destination wedding is that most of the time, the beautiful scenery IS your decor...no need to go overboard with flowers and such. We're keeping it simple with a pink rose petal aisle and rose petal toss bags.
Palm fans tied with pink and green ribbon will be placed atop each chair
Centerpiece ideas:
We're having our centerpieces done like this with pink and green cymbidium orchids and we'll be placing them down the center of our table
These are other centerpiece ideas we had...
The Cake, or as Franck Eggelhoffer from Father Of The Bride would say, "The Keck":
I love knottie jenmartin's cake...so simple and elegant! Ours will look something like this but with two layers and pink & green cymbidium orchids.
Favors and OOT Packages:
Favors:
We're doing these adorable chartreuse and white polka-dot pillow boxes from Paper Source filled with yummy dipped shortbread cookies from Big Island Candies. All topped off with a pale pink ribbon!
We won't be using all of this ribbon, but this served as some of my inspiration...aren't all of the pink & green colors pretty?
What better to get people in the mood than music? We'll be giving out a CD of some of our favorite love songs and mood music.
we decided to buy white card CD cases from Bliss Weddings Market and decorate them with cardstock (from Paper Source of course!) and pink & green polka-dotted ribbon. Here's how they turned out:
We're including an insert inside the case that explains why these songs mean something to us like the fact that my late father used to play Elvis's Blue Hawaii songs to us when we were kids or the fact that "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off" doesn't really mean what the title says but more so that opposites attract. Otherwise, some of the folks may have just thought that they were all just a bunch of sappy songs!
Our song list:
At Last-Etta James
The best feeling in the world is when, at long last, you finally find the love of your life.
Buckets of Rain-Wendy Bucklow
When they were first dating, Isaac told Pam that this song reminded him of her. Pam never knew why, but thought it was sweet.
Ask-The Smiths
Fancy putting a Smiths song on a wedding CD! Well, number one, it reminds us of all the times we spent listening to Pam’s favorite band in the car, and number two, it is love that brings us together, isn’t it?
Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off-Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
Well, not really. What this song really is is a celebration of our differences. One says potato, the other says po-tah-to; we are like bacon and gorgonzola—completely different but oh-so-complimentary.
The Littlest Birds-Jolie Holland
It’s the simplest things about each other that we love the most and make us want to get up every morning.
Sin Tu Carino-Ruben Blades
Means “without your loving” in Spanish. As a child, Isaac would listen to this song and think that whomever this person is singing about has got to be someone very special.
Ice Cream-Sarah McLachlan
Love that’s better than ice cream and chocolate? Who could ask for anything better?
Girl From Ipanema-Astrud Gilberto
A bit of a melancholy song, we agree, but imagine this: relaxing on the beach in Maui with this song playing in the background and not a care in the world. The perfect mood music.
Beyond The Sea-Bobby Darin
Our hearts have led us here, beyond the sea, where we will kiss just as before.
Hawaiian Wedding Song-Elvis Presley
Pam’s Dad used to play this and other “Blue Hawaii” songs in the car during their family road trips. A Hawaiian wedding, therefore, seemed inevitable.
Somewhere Over The Rainbow/What A Wonderful World- Israel Kamakawiwo’ole
We stumbled across IZ’s version of the classic songs as we were researching Hawaiian music for the wedding, and after hearing it, we fell in love with its innocence.
Our Love Is Here To Stay-Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
In time, the Rockies may tumble, Gibraltar may crumble—they’re only made of clay. Simply put, we’re in this for the long haul.
Cancion Del Elegido-Silvio Rodgiguez
Means “Song of the chosen one” in Spanish. There is a plan for all of us on this planet. We may not know what that plan may be, but we are happy knowing that we are a part of each other’s journey.
Unforgettable-Natalie Cole and Nat “King” Cole
Dedicated to Pam’s Dad, who although is not with us in person, is with us in spirit.
Danke Shoen-Wayne Newton
Just a fun way to say “Thank You” for all of the love and support you’ve given us throughout the years. We love you all.
OOT Packages:
As we're going to have absolutely no time when we get to Maui, we're going to send OOT packages to our guest's homes as they RSVP. We ordered white corrugated tuck-top boxes from Paper Mart and decorated them with chartreuse cardstock from Paper Source, letters punched out with a paper punch and pale pink ribbon.
This is what was in them--our welcome letter, Maui maps & travel guides, Target luggage tags, sunscreen & waterproof disposable cameras.
These were the luggage tags for our OOT bags that we found at Target for $3.39 for a pack of 2.
Check it out--they swivel open...
Attire:
No dress pics since my FI accidentally saw my old bio w/ dress pics in it...BOO!
Picking out shoes was so hard since we're getting married on a lawn and I was afraid of my heels sinking into the grass. I'm normally a stiletto girl, but with the grass situation, I had to search for either a wedge or a thicker heel.
These silver wedges were the first runner up--I love the sleek wedge style, but I wasn't sure that silver would go with a light ivory dress. It's OK, though, I can still keep them to wear with jeans!
After some searching, I finally found the winner--the most adorable satin sandals by Charles David. And only $45.99 on Amazon.com!
Jewelry:
My E-ring and wedding band...please ignore my crusty hands. I'm just trying the wedding band on for the photo--that's OK, right?
Hair Ideas
The look I'm going for is very sleek and simple...an elegant chignon with an orchid or two on the side.
Lash Extensions!
Being Asian, I have always been "eyelash-challenged." I really wanted to have long, pretty lashes for the wedding & honeymoon so I just HAD to get them. I LOOOVE them!
UPDATE: *DISCLAIMER ABOUT THE LASHES* They rocked for about 2 weeks and then started to look really nappy. As you can see from the "before" pic, my natural lashes are very weak and virtually non-existent and therefore, did not provide a very good anchor for the extensions. They fell out alot earlier than expected and left huge gaps in my lash line. I ended up plucking them all out. I think they would have worked better on someone with a little bit of a stronger foundation of natural lashes.
Before (No lashes):
After (Lashes!)
Vendors:
Coordination services: Precious Maui Weddings
Photography: Lashawn Photographic
Ceremony & Reception location: The Seawatch
Cake: Maui Wedding Cakes
Hair: Dan Sanchez
Makeup: Jessica Waite
Flowers: Maui Blooms
Invitations: Savvy Designs
Travel Agent (LAX flights): Mary Huebner, Travel Store of Kona (808)331-2415
Interisland Flights: Hawaiian Airlines
Hotels & Rental Cars: Priceline.com
Alterations (Los Angeles): Lady Jane (818)761-3541
Engagement Ring: Blue Nile
Wedding Bands: Bridal Rings Company
Cookie Favors: Big Island Candies
OOT packaging: Paper Mart
Cookie Favor Packaging & cardstock for DIY projects: Paper Source
Palm Fans: Asian Ideas
CD Cases & Sinamay Petal Bags: Bliss Weddings Market
Life is short--eat it up! Visit Daily Gluttony today!
|
|
|
