Kahu Bruce Ah Leong

We hired Kahu Bruce Ah Leong for our wedding ceremony in August 2018 on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. His reviews appeared good and we were excited to move forward with him. When I first reached out to him, the process started out straightforward. He sent me his contract and I carefully reviewed it. I am always hesitant to enter contracts as my professional experience is weighted in the litigation industry and I never prefer to enter into an agreement that is excessively binding. I reviewed his contract and it appeared okay. He required a 50% deposit to reserve his services. I sent him a check in the mail and he reserved our date. Two months before our wedding, we experienced some family circumstances and made the decision to get married on the mainland early due to personal reasons. Therefore, we no longer needed Kahu Bruce's services in Hawaii. I reached out to him and explained this and he proceeded to tell me the deposit is not refundable unless he is able to book another couple for our date. I was shocked and reviewed his contract carefully again because I did not remember verbiage that stated this anywhere in the contract. I reviewed our past email exchanges and saw no mention of this anywhere. I also don't recall him verbally explaining this. I even ran the contract by my family members who are currently in the legal industry, and we picked apart the language written in the contract. I sent an email to Bruce explaining that I re-read the contract and it did not state ANYWHERE that the deposit was non-refundable or any terms surrounding that. I worked in the legal industry for many years. I'm pretty familiar with contract verbiage and like I said before, I don't usually get involved with anything that's binding/non-refundable. That's why I read through contracts pretty thoroughly before I sign. He sent me an email stating that he will not return our deposit unless he books another couple for our date (this is written NOWHERE in the contract). He stated that his wedding services agreement "is just that, an outline of the expectations of my services, it is not truly a strictly enforced contract with rigid verbiage meant to be enforced and picked apart by a court of law." So what was it then? And if it's not a strictly enforced contract, was he just conveniently keeping our money based on whatever terms he wanted to enforce? I have read and re-read his contract about 10 times to date, and I still see no transparent mention ANYWHERE that the deposit is non-refundable and he will only return it if he books another couple for the date. I reached out to him to check in to see if he had ended up booking another couple for our date about 2 weeks ago, and he still hasn't responded. I will not pursue legal action over $162, but this exchange has been ridiculous. I don't even care about the money at this point, but rather the bad energy I received from him throughout this experience. Per the contract, he had no right to keep our money. I told myself if it was returned, I wouldn't write this review, however with the lack of response and breach of contract, I had to give a warning to those who may be booking with him. I understand a lot of couples don't have a change of plans in regards to their ceremony, but this experience seemed quite focused on the money. Hopefully this helps someone. Just be aware when booking with him that the deposit is non-refundable and he appears to be quite into the money & less into the people he is serving.

Kahu Bruce was our officiant on 6/9/18. He met us at the Dept of Health when we got our wedding license, and then met w/us afterwards to discuss the ceremony. During the ceremony, he will remind you both to breathe and enjoy. We wanted a beautiful Hawaiian ceremony that was non-denominational and he definitely delivered. As a destination wedding (half of our guests are from California), our mainland guests loved the cultural aspects including the meaning of ALOHA, the gifting of the Maile lei, and the sand ceremony. He even allowed a moment of silence for our dearly departed. My family and local friends liked how it was just different from your typical ceremony. It was a short-and-sweet, yet unique, ceremony that was only 15 min long. Our guests kept commenting on now neat the ceremony was! Kahu even sent us a card after we got married, so sweet!

The absolute best officiant on the island!!! I have been to many weddings in Hawaii and no one came close to Bruce. The best ceremony ever! All my guests could not stop raving about Bruce. He was friendly, organized, funny, and sweet. We met with him before the wedding to take care of our marriage license. Then he sat down with us and we went through the entire ceremony step by step. He took the time to answer all my questions and told us not to worry because the day of the wedding he would tell us what to say and what to do. The best part is that during the wedding when he was telling us what to do, he did it so subtly and professionally that no one noticed that he was directing us. The ceremony ran so smoothly. We didn't have to think or remember what was coming next. His ceremony and explanations of ALOHA and the meaning of marriage was absolutely beautiful. We love Bruce!!! I totally recommend him as your officiant. By the end of the day we felt like we had made a friend.

Kahu Bruce is wonderful and our guests loved him! His warm smile, friendly demeanor, helpful instruction, and reminders to breathe (haha!) set us at ease in front of our guests. While my new husband and I are not religious, he had a beautiful non-denominational ceremony to recommend including his own as well as traditional Hawaiian prayers and customizable vows. The prayer translations he had provided were beautiful as was his definition of ALOHA which he used to open up the ceremony. He thoughtfully explained Hawaiian tradition, his prayers, the lei exchanges, and hand positioning to our guests welcoming them into our special day. We couldn't have chosen a better officiant for our destination wedding. Thank you Kahu Bruce for making our wedding day everything we dreamed of!