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In looking over the Internet, I find so many sites that offer generic
Wedding Planner Online services. While this might give couples some great
ideas about how to plan their weddings -- especially weddings on the mainland
-- you will find that destination weddings are a horse of a different color
needing a whole different mindset.
With a destination wedding, you will usually not able to afford to visit or
see the actual wedding site (except in pictures). You are usually not able to
get everything you want locally, unless you ship it in. For example, many
brides have the impression that they can make last minute flower changes
thinking that our florist can get whatever flowers they desire. While that may
be true on the mainland, especially in larger cities, it is not true here. Our
florist has her flowers shipped in from all over the world (particularly
Holland and South America). While she still gets many flowers on-island, she
must plan ahead, because the truth is: there is limited availability of
everything on an island. Almost everything that's here has been shipped in.
What works on the mainland doesn't always work here. For example, on the
mainland, you send out instructions to your guests and tell them the address
of the church or chapel or wedding site where the ceremony will take place.
This is pretty straightforward. But so many of our weddings on Maui are out of
doors on an unmarked beach or at a waterfall or in a garden, and finding those
locations (even with maps) can be difficult. In our experience, the larger the
party, the more likely someone will get lost. Remember, everyone is new to the
area and its easy to get confused and turned around. That's why we take all
sorts of precautions to avoid losing people (like having them follow us in a
train of rental cars to one of our secluded Maui beach sites).
So, why Wedding Planner Online services are good places to obtain ideas, they
cannot possibly tell you the specific things that you will need to know at
your destination wedding. It is so important that you talk to a local wedding
coordinator to get all of the important details so that you won't encounter
problems later. And you will want to choose a coordinator who has experience,
because that experience can save you problems later. This is every important
when the wedding is outside (with weather and logistics considerations thrown
in) and it is extremely important if you have a larger wedding.
One of our couples recently told us that they met another couple who had just
gotten married with another coordinator. They suggested to our couple: "You
must be stressed" (which our couple was not). Then the proceeded to share
their own wedding story. Their coordinator told them that the wedding site she
had booked for them had suddenly become unavailable. (Wasn't there a deposit?
Wasn't there a guarantee?) So the coordinator moved their wedding for about 60
people into a friend's backyard in a residential neighborhood (we would NEVER
do this), which was totally unsuitable for that many people. The coordinator
had not given the song list to the musicians in advance (how can they practice
the songs this way?) and so she had to leave and return to her own home to
retrieve it.
But the worst problem they encountered, was that the neighbors in this
residential neighborhood were upset with the noise and called the police! (All
of the sites we use have specific noise restrictions and we know where we can
and cannot have a band). You can imagine how it must have added stress to the
evening to have the Maui police arrive at their reception. (No wonder they
were stressed). Because they had no right to do a wedding in this
neighborhood, the police made them shut down the reception at 9:00 p.m.
The bigger your wedding, the more certain you must be of your coordinator's
expertise. It is wise to check out your company thoroughly, first by looking
at their website (where you should be able to get a good feeling about who
they are and what they do. If you can't get names and addresses from the
website, I would start to worry). Then talk to them to the phone (If they
don't answer their phone very often, they may have a day job and do weddings
"on the side." Do they respond quickly? Are they personable? How do they treat
you? Are they knowledgeable? Then check to see if they are members of the
Better Business Bureau. (There are lots of companies on Maui that will NEVER
be able to become BBB members because they have so many unhappy clients. It's
important that you know this before you book with them). If you have any
doubts, ask for references from other couples who are willing to describe how
their wedding came off.
We are certainly a Wedding Planner Online Service. You can use our website to
find out a world of information and details about all aspect of Maui Weddings.
But unlike the websites which are just in business just to give you ideas, our
advice and our services are designed to be specifically practical for actual
weddings for our specific destination wedding location of Maui.
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