Here are some of my favorite pro pictures all Taken by Barbara A. Gibson/Terra Photography.  http://terraphotography.com/  Barbara was so nice and friendly!!  She always answered any questions that I had prior to the wedding and on our wedding day she really did a fantastic job!!

16th Tee Box Klipper Golf Course, Kaneohe, Hawaii

"Mahalo" means Thank You in Hawaiian. 

That was my sassy look!!  haha

My husband loves golf so we had to get some pics!

I am finally married!!  The past few weeks have been so exciting and a bit stressful but I am so happy to be married!!  I will try to update my bio soon with lots more pics and info on my DIY projects. : )

I think it has finally set in...I am getting married!  I have a few more things to do and then it is showtime!!  I am so honored some of my family and friends made the long trip here to Hawaii to share in my special day!  My wedding was not possible without all the inspiration from PW!!  I have lots of DIY stuff that I will update to my bio when I get back!!  Wish me luck ladies and I shall be back a married woman!! 

FI and I knew we didn't want to spend a fortune on our wedding.  I'm not currently working plus we are moving back to the mainland in May 2010 and really want to save our money for our first house.  We decided on a small and intimate wedding with close family and friends on the beach.  The problem with living in Hawaii is that everything is expensive...really expensive!!  Our budget is $6500.  That's right...only $6500 for approximately 60 guests.  Keep in mind FI bought me my ring without my knowledge.  He totally surprised me with my gorgeous E-ring and we are not including the price of the ring in our total budget.  Here are some of the things we are doing to save money.

Limiting our guest list to 60 guests.

We are not having a bridal party.

Our ceremony will be on a golf course overlooking the ocean on a Marine Base.  It costs $350 to rent the site.

Our reception will be at the Officers' Club on the Marine Base.  It does not cost anything to rent a reception room. 

Our dinner buffet costs approximately $27.00 per person.  This does not include alcoholic beverages.

I designed and assembled our pocketfold invites.  I purchased the pocketfolds and paper from cardsandpockets.com.  The total cost of the paper and pockets (including shipping) was $116.00.

Jason picked out my engagement ring and wedding band all by himself!!  We never even looked at rings but yet he knew exactly what I wanted.  He researched the 4 C's and spent time looking for the perfect ring.  I LOVE IT!!!  My ring is so gorgeous!! 

It didn't take long to decide on our wedding colors.  My favorite color is green and FI's favorite is blue.  We wanted a tropical color theme so we picked carribean blue and clover green.

So this is it...my FI and I get the both of both worlds.  I get the beach and he gets the golf course!!  haha  Our ceremony site is absolutely gorgeous!!  I just pray that the weather cooperates on our wedding day!  Keep your fingers crossed!

Here is our reception site.  It is perfect for our small and intimate wedding.  Plus I love the views from the windows. 

This is the view from outside the building.

Here is my dress!  It is Venus by Lotus Orient whom I have never ever heard of before.  I  did not want to wear a strapless dress for my wedding but as soon as I put on this dress I loved it!!  The beadwork is beautiful too!!  It should look even better when I lose 5 pounds.  hahaha 

UPDATED: 10/24:  I had my final fitting and now I am even happier with my dress!! 

We are doing something similar to this for our centerpieces.

Our wedding is outdoors so we like the idea of the strands of flowers on the chairs.

I am not working right now so I figured I should be able to DIY lots of stuff for my wedding.  So far I have enjoyed going the DIY route.  haha  Here is a list of my DIY projects.  I wil post pics when each project is finished.

Pocketfold Invites- Almost done!!  I designed the invites myself.  I knew we wanted a tropical theme so we have little palm trees on the invites.

Pocketfolds and paper from cardsandpockets.com

Tables Numbers-Almost done!!  I designed these myself.  Our tables numbers will have the name of our favorite beaches in Hawaii and California.

Seating Chart

Mr. and Mrs. chairback signs

Candy Bar signs

Favor Stickers

Card Box

Wooden "LOVE" letters- These will be placed on our candy buffet table.  I painted them blue and then painted a glitter paint on top.

Guest book

Wish Bowl

We wanted to cut costs so we chose to go the DIY route with the invites.  We only had 60 to make but it still was a long process.  I designed everything myself and went through several revisions before I got the modern tropical theme I was looking for.  As of 9/4/09 I am finally done!!  I purchased my pocketfolds and paper from cardsandpockets.com (I love cardsandpockets)  The colors I used were: Meadow green pocketfolds, caribbean blue invitation mats and cream puff cardstock.  FI's favorite color is blue and mine is green so we used both!!

FI and I love the idea of a candy buffet!  I personally have never been to a wedding that had a candy buffet so I wanted to give it a try.  I hope that our guests will love it!  The color of our candy will be our wedding colors which are caribbean blue and a tropical green.

I purchased all my containers at either Ross Dress for Less and Walmart.  The 3 apothecary jars were only $10.99 each at Ross and the smaller containers were only $4.99.  On the left is the Candy Buffet poem I found on PW.  I will raise som eof the containers with boxed spray painted in our colors. 

I am still working on this page...it wwll be updated soon

K-Bay Catering/ The Officers' Club

So far my experience with them has been ok.  Prior to booking the venue I met with the catering manager and she answered all my questions and took me on a tour of the facilities.  I email her ever couple of weeks with tons of questions.  In one of my emails I had 14 questions.  She emailed me right back. 

10/23-This week I have mixed feelings about K-Bay Catering...I feel like they

Cake

We are going with Hokulani Bake Shop http://hokulanibakeshop.com/shop/.  I have heard so many wonderful things about them.  In July 2009 FI and I went to the local bridal expo and Hokulani Bake Shop had a booth.  They were so very helpful to us and we were even able to sample some of their cupcakes.  Their most requested cupcake is their Red Velvet.  After tasting it I know why!!  It is delicious!!  They charge $2.25 per cupcake and a $25.00 tier rental fee.  So far we have decided on the Red Velvet, Strawberry-Guave and Peanut Butter cupcakes.

10/23: In September we decided to change cupcake vendors...now we are going with Sunshine's Cake Creations http://www.sunshinescakecreations.com/index.html .  We ordered strawberry shortcake cupcakes, strawberry guava cupcakes and chocolate cupcakes.  Our liners will be in blue and green.  We customized the design for the top of our cupcakes.  It will be similar to this S with a heart shape J. 

Dress

I ordered my dress from Vows Bridal and Formals in Honolulu http://www.vowsbridalandformals.com/  Vicki is so knowledgeable and was really helpful in helping me find my wedding dress!!

Photography

We booked Barbara Gibson owner of Terraphotography http://terraphotography.com/.  We met Barbara and felt very comfortable with her.  She had lots of ideas and some suggestions for our photos.  We are going with her 6 hour package.

Flowers

We booked Watanabe Floral http://www.watanabefloral.com/default.asp for our flowers.  I have met with Rona and she was very knowledgable and gave me some ideas that I had not considered.  They will allow me to bring in my own glass vases for my arrangements and they will make samples for me.  WHOO HOO!!  Plus they are giving us a 10% military discount!!  Awesome! 

Flowers for  ceremony site

Sign in table arrangement

Candy buffet table arrangement

Sweetheart table arrangements

3 strand Pikake lei for me

Maile with Pikake lei for FI

Maile lei for father of bride

Maile lei for son

Leis for special guests

Monstera Leaves for tables

Orchid heads to be sprinkled on tables

Rose petals for aisle

My bouquet

Our sign in table had our guests escort cards, a wish bowl and our card box. 

Photo Taken by Barbara a. Gibson/Terra Photography

This is our DIY card box. I bought 3 different sized square boxes and I used blue and kiwi colored wrapping paper to wrap each one.  My friends and I attached 2 types of blue ribbon around the boxes.  One the dark colored ribbon I attached rhinestones that had adhesive on them already.  This added a little bit of blig.  The top of the box looks messy but it was actually a bow that we made from ribbon. 

Picture Taken by Barbara A. Gibson/Terra Photography

This is our Wish Bowl sign that we had on our sign in table.  Beside the sign was a glass vase in which our guests could write little notes/wishes to us.  It was really cute and I loved all the little notes we received from our family and friends : )

Photo Taken by Barbara A. Gibson/Terra Photography

I made OOT bags for my guests that flew in for our wedding.  They loved receiving these OOT bags at our rehearsal dinner.  I bought the Hawaii tote bag at Target.

Hawaii tote bag

1 bag of chocolate covered macadamia nuts

2 Hawaii postcards

1 Hawaii magnet

1 Hawaii shot glass

Hawaii tour guide magazines

Map of Waikiki and Oahu

I had read online that some couples sent a wedding invitation to the President and that they received a congratulatory note from them.  So FI and I decided to try it.  I mailed the invitation to President Obama in September.  About 3 months later I recieved this from them!!  This is definitely going in our wedding scrapbook : )