Wedding Alerts
7/08 - Permits Required For All Beach Weddings: The State of Hawaii will begin enforcement of a law requiring a State issued use permit for free beach locations used for wedding ceremonies starting 8/1/08. Proof of liability insurance listing the State of Hawaii as additionally insured will be required to apply for a permit. The cost of the permit will be based upon the size of the wedding and the actual space required. Couples may apply for the permit directly (with proof of liability insurance) or the wedding company providing service may do so.
8/07 - Hotels Trying to Cash-In: Some hotels have already been raising their ceremony site fees and rates to ridiculous levels (including room rates). So much so that we can no longer recommend some of them. Now, they don't just want some of your money, they want ALL your money! The latest is that, couples can no longer use the hotels ceremony site without first booking one of their packages using hotel "approved" vendors. Basically, the have set prices for services and everything is paid to the hotel directly (truthfully, kind of what we do) and the hotel marks up the price (to hotel rates). Effectively, the hotel will be asking their vendors to accept a lesser payment so the hotel can make as much as they can for their cut OR they'll charge a ridiculous price and everyone makes out... except YOU! We think they'll ask the vendors to take less, hotels always want to pay their "workers" as little as possible! Consequently, what the vendor will have to do to make up this "loss", will be to raise their prices significanly for anything more than what the package provides. Bottom line, you'll end up paying far more for less services and product, than had you not used the hotel. It's a sad day for couples wishing or needing the services of a hotel.
7/07 - Everybody And Anybody Doing Weddings: We received a call from a woman who recently got a license to marry people and started a Hawaii wedding website. Her website is actually quite nice. She's booked a wedding or two already, the problem is, she doesn't have any vendors for some of her key services... and she's looking for help and really doesn't know what she is doing. Unfortunately, everyone wants to do Hawaii weddings and many are! To give anyone advice about their Hawaii wedding, you need a lot of experience with weddings, locations and venues, appropriate times, travel times, and knowledge of each individual vendors services you offer, expertise that even the most seasoned vendors and professionals do not have, and even those who say they are "certified" as wedding planners don't have! What'cha going to do and how can you tell who really knows what they are talking about? Don't ask us, we can't tell you... there's no website that's going to tell you that they really don't know what they are doing, they all make themselves sound good!
5/07 - Premium Hotels Charging Premium Rates: According to one of our friends who works at a top premium hotel, they had a meeting recently and decided that because, weddings and catering are such a small percentage of their gross revenues (their room rates are ridiculously high) and because they contract out all the best weekday times to Japanese wedding companies anyway, that they no longer desired to offer weddings at their two sites. Of course, they can't just say "no" so, instead they raised their rates to effectively price themselves out of the market. We suspect that one or two other hotels are deciding to follow the same strategy. You'll know who they are because, you'll have to jump through some hoops just to use them and they'll charge you for every little thing they possibly can! FYI: This doesn't make them any less desirable, just far more costly.
5/07 - Watch Out For This Website: We've heard from a bunch of people calling us, about a website which is in the top positions of just about every search engine. While we don't like to mention the practices of other websites, we heard so many negative experiences that, we would be remiss if we did not alert people to this. Apparently, besides a "we don't care, we get a lot of inquiries" attitude, this particular person/website has cancelled weddings last minute after months of contact, pressured people to reserve with continual phone calls, has posted client's full names and personal information on the Internet, and has gone so far as to make unauthorized non-wedding related charges on clients's credit cards! One of our clients, after having a bad "gut feeling" did some research and found other posts regarding this company on "The Knot", a popular website, and on other resources. Sorry, that's about as far as we can go in exposing this website without actually naming it.
10/06 - El Nino: It's back! The last time it was here was in 2004 (see alert below). What this means is that we will experience "perfect tourist weather" i.e. mostly sunny except for a few afternoon rain showers. Characteristically, it causes a very dry winter with drought-like conditions and possibly a wetter than normal summer (which are usually very dry so this is not necessarily bad). This is good news if you are planning your wedding in the winter months and you shouldn't worry about the summer.
1/06 - El Nena: The Pacific Ocean is starting to cool down again and is creating the El Nena weather pattern which will last at least until July. Climatologists cannot agree on wether this will lead to more wet weather than normal (what's normal nowadays?) or not because some areas are receiving less rain than normal but what they can agree upon is that, it's harder to predict how the weather is affected versus the effects caused by El Nino (see below).
6/05 - Hotel On Strike: The union for the hotel workers for the North Shore hotel, Turtle Bay Hilton and Resort have been waging a bitter strike for the last 2 years. The hotel has been struggling to maintain adequate staff levels in recent months when walk-outs occur. More importantly, frequent strike initiated picket lines at the entrance to the hotel have been disrupting the ingress and egress of couples, guests, and vendors (some of whom refuse to cross).
4/05 - Certified Professional Photographers: A Certified Professional Photographer or CPP is a trademark designation awarded by the Professional Photographers of America. There are more than a few websites which say they use CPP photographers and it's just no so. There are only a handful of photographers in Hawaii who have earned this designation from the PPA and none of them work for these websites (except ours).
3/05 - Bed & Breakfast and Vacation Rentals: It has been recently reported in the news about the Governor's desire through the State Tax Director going to start going after taxes owed by illegal Bed & Breakfast and vacation home rentals. They have initiated their investigations by using the Internet to find all the rentals that are being advertised and probably the same sites you may have visited. The great majority of these operations have been operating for many years even though it is technically illegal. Most of these "businesses" exist, the North Shore, Windward Coast, Kailua, Lanikai, and Kahala. If you are thinking of or have rented one of these homes, it would be best for you to ask about their status and how it will affect you and your agreed upon rate should they be hit with years of back taxes and fines.
3/05 - Permits Required: All beaches, parks, and free sites require a special use permit for weddings from the State of Hawaii or City and County of Honolulu, whether it's just two people on the beach or a whole group. Enforcement of this requirement has been non-existent in the last couple of years and consequently, many new wedding companies are unaware of this requirement. Recently, in anticipation of new rules and regulations, enforcement has picked up significantly. We've heard that recently, couples and/or their wedding planners have been asked for their permits and not having any, have had their events cut short.
2/05 - Diamond Head Beach Park: There is a small group of homeless people who live there and while the worst thing they do is bum for cigarettes, this is something people should be aware of if considering this site. FYI: Homeless people do move around and they may not be there in the future.
10/04 - El Nino: According to the National Weather Service, the Pacific Ocean is starting to warm up again and is changing from the El Nena to the El Nino weather pattern (it changes every few years). What this means is that we will experience "perfect tourist weather" i.e. no clouds, no rain, always sunny except for a few afternoon thunderstorms. Characteristically, a very dry winter with drought-like conditions and possibly a wetter than normal summer (which are usually very dry). This is good news if you are planning your wedding in the winter months though it doesn't necessarily mean summer will be rainy in the summer (it's always nice in Hawaii, even with a little rain).
9/04 - You're not married: According to the State marriage licensing division, there has been a rash of marriages being performed by unlicensed individuals and ministers with expired licenses causing couples to have their licenses rejected and consequently being not legally married. Licensing personnel request that you be aware of who you are using.
8/04 - More permits may soon be required to get married in a public location: The State of Hawaii is in the process of instituting restrictions which will make it harder for couples to get married on the beach in Hawaii. On places like Maui where beaches are so small and even Kauai, this has been a problem with wedding couples literally side by side exchanging vows at their "private" beach location. This will not affect private paid locations. Check here for updates.