deannasa's reviews

I hired Oahu Wedding to coordinate our wedding over a year in advance of my wedding date. Martina was the wedding coordinator assigned to our wedding date. Her website looked nice and she initially had a very quick response to our initial inquiry. Looking back now I see that that was just to gain our initial business. As it got closer to the wedding date it seemed as if having her as my coordinator only added more stress to the planning rather than alleviate anything from our plates. There were specific issues that I mention below.


Photographer: We were told on several instances (via email) that we were going to have a specific Photographer that day of the wedding. After we got back from our honeymoon, we called that company to check the status of our photos and to get an ETA on the finished product. They said they NEVER even had us booked for that weekend. The photographer there that day wasn’t even from their company! I was shocked. From here on I had no clue who that photographer was that was shooting on our wedding day. We left two voice messages for Martina/Oahu Weddings and she never once returned our messages. How could she not even follow up on us with our wedding pictures that she had booked for us? How would we have ever known who to contact etc? I had to do a little random research on the internet to find out who the company was to do the photos that day. All I knew was the name of the photographer. I ended up getting down to the bottom of it and finding out who it was. Very disappointing being that we were excited about the initial photography company who was going to do the work for us that day. We were never notified of any change in the photographer. I would think that a wedding coordinator would know how important wedding photos are to a couple being that those are the only tangible memories you have of that day. NIGHTMARE!!

DJ and Emcee: Again, we were told we’d be having a specific DJ there that day of the wedding. He was highly recommended by several people (especially our catering manager) and so we were thrilled to have him there that day being that that was an important thing for us. When you are spending over a grand on a DJ I think it is important to have one who you have done research on and were happy with. The day of the wedding we show up to the reception and the DJ we were under the impression we had hired was not the DJ who was there. To say the least, the DJ who performed the DJ and emcee service was mediocre and not too enthusiastic. I was so disappointed but tried not to show this to my guests and tried not to let it ruin our night. Once again Martina (Oahu Weddings) dropped this ball on this one. I have emails with her telling us we’d be getting that specific DJ and once again she failed to follow through on that guarantee.

Although, the two issues above were the most important and disappointed there were many other things that Martina and Oahu Weddings failed to pay close attention too. there were also many cases where I feel like she was trying to overcharge us. She claims that she works with a wholesale florist and is very involved in the design. I don’t believe she is a professional florist so please think twice before hiring her if flowers are an important part of your wedding. I ended up going with Su V Expressions and her work was absolutely beautiful. I later found that that she booked the photographer (keep in mind the wrong one) just about a month prior to our wedding date. I also called the ceremony music vendor that was supposed to be booked for our ceremony a few days prior to our wedding date just to make sure that was booked since I was skeptical of Martina’s bookings. The Company said that Martina hadn’t even booked our performer yet. This was 2 days prior to the wedding day! And we had told her we wanted the performer from the very start. Very poor planning. These are just a few issues among the many.

Just wanted to share with you my horrible experience so that you can avoid it for your big day!

I highly recommend Sue. I had a last minute issue with my coordinator/florist and started calling around. I found Sue and am so glad I did. She was super quick at getting back to me and helpful in providing me with ideas and suggestions for my arragnements and all my other florals for the wedding day. Having been from california and not seeing her work prior, i didn't know what to expect. On my wedding day i was so thrilled to see everything and how beautiful everythign came out. The centerpiece arrangements were beautiful and everything from my bouquets to the little flower girl orchid halos were gorgeous. I am so happy with how everything turned out that day and am still having my guests (two weeks later) talk about how beautiful the flowers were. Don't think tiwce about using Sue as your florist. You will be more than happy with her final work :)