We really liked this site because of the waterfall wedding you are able to have. There is like an asian style rock garden area with a waterfall and a bamboo bridge over the koi ponds where you can reserve for your ceremony for mid $200 range which does not include the officiant.

This site is able to set-up a ceremony for just $150 charge in their garden through A Catered Experience when you book an event, such as your wedding reception lunch or dinner. It looks beautiful; they provide 24 chairs, arch, two podiums/pillars, and the aisle runner for setup outside in their garden area. You have that one hour setup time prior to your event to decorate those items outside for your ceremony and have the ceremony, so the only thing is that you need someone else to prepare the inside for your reception and you do need to bring your own officiant to marry you.

This is our first choice for the lunch reception site, Okinawan Center in Waipio through A Catered Experience. This vendor we found actually takes care of the booking of the site for your reception, setting up amount of tables and chairs needed for your party (reception and head table also), buffet line, white linens, disposable plates/utensils (flatware available depending on event or preferences), microphone/podium, food stays out for 1 1/2 hours and event time given is 10 - 2 with one hour prior for set-up time for the lunch reception event. The menu price per head was very reasonable, such a good deal to us that we decided to go from 60 people to 125 people instead!

This is our third pick for ceremony/reception site & caterer. This location has everything in one shot and they have a few options, as well as an ala carte menu for wedding ceremony/reception/catering ideas. I really liked the options and look of this place for the most part. They have a little church to have your wedding ceremony by that they are able to decorate for you. This is my third location choice so far for an all-in-one wedding spot, next to the Pagoda Restaurant and Okinawan Center. The Willows food has always been good to me, no matter if just casual dining or for company parties. They have street parking & valet. The price per head is reasonable, comparable to Pagoda depending on the menu choices selected. The only thing personally that we didn't care for was the more local Hawaiian feel the location has, which reminded us of Haiku Gardens. We think it looks beautiful but we were looking more at an asian theme wedding.

At first my fiance and I wondered why so many dresses came in strapless, since that is a style we didn't desire. The person who helped us at the Bella Bridal shop informed us that mostly all dress that were shown as strapless did in fact come with straps, at least the spaghetti straps on the side. I addition, the shop said they could actually sew on straps depending on the dress and what style you preferred. This was great to find out about because we both thought that our choices had been limited to those shown in the magazines, online or in-store, and catalogs.

My heart was quite set on the Byodo-in Temple up in Kaneohe at Valley of the Temples, but we are still deciding on that site due to the quoted prices. The setting is beautiful, a replica of the temple in Japan. There peacocks that roam the area and also a koi pond. The temple is available for wedding ceremonies and picture taking for a fee, which is a bit costly for the two hour time from in which they block off for you. The property is private so it is a prime way for the temple to obtain funds to maintain the area. If you are willing to just take wedding photos there, the fee is much less for an hour worth of time.

The bridal expo at Neal Blaisdell Center has mostly vendors on the island that you may want to consider for different aspects of your future wedding, such as It's About Time for the folded crane portraits. There are also many give aways and prizes to win from entering drawings and sometimes from just being present at the event. There are usually a few photographers and videographers on site too, along with a few wedding planners.

We found these beautiful and practical favors online at what we thought was a very good price. It is a set of 2 glass coasters with etching of the word love underneath the kanji symbol for that word. Each set is tied in sheer red ribbon. The more you order the lower the price goes! These will be part of our favors for the wedding in September. All we'll be adding is a set of chopsticks.

We checked out the Pagoda Hotel for our reception site. It is located in town and had two menus to offer for the reception, one was a Japanese menu which had a minimum headcount of 60 and the other more American menu which had a minimum headcount of 75. They had other ballrooms that could of course accomodate more, but at the time this was a good deal & set-up for our lunch reception we hoped for. The price is very reasonable and they set-up tables, round, of ten and provide microphone, reception table, and head table set-up with white table cloths and napkin color of your choice if available. They offer a long set-up time during the morning for your own decorations/preparations, but just request no streamers or confetti/glitter.

My fiance and I drove by a shop called Bella Bridal and decided to drop in for a visit. I left my list of bridal shops that I wanted to visit at home that day, so I thought this was one of them (turned out that it wasn't actually on my list). The store is between a vacant internet cafe and a korea eating/karaoke place and there is parking right in front of the store. It was conveniently located in town and we went one hour before their closing time on a Sunday afternoon, so there were no issues with parking or wait times to be helped. The store presentation worked for me (clean, tiled, open space, a/c, organized) and there was a woman who came up to the front to offer assistance right away. She explained briefly (which I like) where certain items were located, such as discontinued dresses or sale dresses, then let us just browse. When we came to about the center of the store, the woman who greeted us came back to ask some general questions to determine what our needs at that time were. She offered us a few books with various style of men's attire, bride and bridesmaids dresses to look through. She gave us enough time to look through things, came back to ask if we had questions without seeming intrusive or pushy, and was very informative and knowledgeable when answering our questions. It was also interesting to learn that they could get a dress in just about any color and add/subtract just about anything from a dress if we wanted, like the straps. We felt comfortable overall with the entire experience and definitely have that shop in mind for a few dress options to revisit.