Just amazing! Lori at Tropical Maui Weddings is incredible. She and her husband Jamie exceeded our expectations by miles! Our wedding - true to form (unfortunately) - had an immense challenge preventing us from being able to have it on Tue Aug ...28; the Category 5 Hurricane Lane in late Aug 2018 that hovered in front of the Big Island and creating a ton of storm rain for Maui. We were closely watching the news and weather channel, and keeping in constant touch with Lori, who provided so much frequent real-time info and reassurance as the days neared, what it was like on Maui with Hurricane Lane slamming the islands and not leaving! We were the last flight out of the Bay Area, (and Canada). All our family and friends had their flights cancelled, except those coming from Australia who were already in the air - all rebooked 36hours later, thankfully.
Lori and team were organizing and conducting weddings successfully, but Hurricane Lane, not leaving or moving more than 2mph, battered Maui harder. Inquiring with Lori about possibly moving our wedding from Tue to Wed 29Sep, she - calm, knowledgeable, reassuring and resourceful as always - juggling an increasing amount of changes and rescheduling weddings that were being upended, said she would get back with us within 2 hours!! She did. And with news that our Olowalu location and all the vendors were holding Tue & Wed available for us. Wow! Right?! Incredible! We chose Wed immediately. Lori had it arranged within another hour with all the vendors and Olowalu. Just Incredible! We were so thankful. Some weddings on the island were cancelled due to Hurricane Lane, and on Tue 28Sep, the fires that sparked in Lahaina, consumed 9 homes. (and I believe extinguishing one life!)
It was heartbreaking. Wildfires during a Cat5 Hurricane?! How?! Lori and her team were amazing - what they all had to deal with; cancelations, rescheduling possibilities, managing and coordinating vendors and wedding locations, stressed out brides & grooms, including us. Lori and Tropical Maui Weddings are worth every dollar!
Lori also helped us immensely by offering up the wedding decorations she has available from previous weddings that she's collected over the years, that we could chose from. And we did! Our decorations were perfect! All from her collection. It was very endearing to spend so much time with Lori, her husband Jamie at their house choosing everything and finalizing decisions. We were made to feel like family - they made our entire wedding planning, wedding ceremony, and reception, an amazing experience. At no point did it feel like we just had a Project Manager plan our wedding and reception - we had an empathic, personable, capable expert who can clearly manage multiple projects wit the same personable touch and care, attention to details, that make all the difference.
And she is very familiar with Olowalu, which also gave us confidence we had the right planner.
Jamie also is an incredible musician who we had play at our wedding and also ran the music at our reception - above and beyond! Amazing! It was clear we needed Jamie to help us successfully manage the music and equipment and proved to be the right call.
We have such incredible memories from our improbable wedding that almost didn't happen. We love Lori, Jamie, Sherry who made a seemingly impossible wedding, possible and magnificent!
Don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions, or want to conduct a reference for their capabilities.