What a beautiful night on Maui. We did 4 weddings with 3 of them in Makena. These 3 all started at the same time (6pm, an hour before sunset). The fact is that Makena offers miles of beaches and even with many weddings going on simultaneously has a sense of beauty and tranquility that other places on Maui can’t match.

Heading south, Makena offers Paluea, Secret Beach, Poolenelena, Makena Surf, Makena Landing, South and North Maluaka and the ever popular Makena Cove. We let our client choose the beach where they want to marry and many wait till they get on Island and check it out for themselves. However a good place to preview these sites is to visit the South Maui Wedding Locations page. Many good pictures of these locations can be seen. And if you need to know more about these location, call the expert, Bill Armstrong at 1-800-395-7807.

I am writing this blog note today as many of our couples are looking to be married on Maui, Kauai or the Big Island of Hawaii want to go to a luau for their reception. This can be a real fun way to culminate a wonderful wedding. However one must understand the timing of things. Most of our couples want to be married at sunset. We will usually schedule the wedding for an hour before the sun sets. That way one can do the ceremony (20 minutes) and leave plenty of time for after photo’s and a colorful sunset. If this is what you want to do fine, but be aware you will not be able to do this and a luau! the luau usually starts an hour before the sun sets too. You’ll either have to plan for an earlier start, or schedule the luau for another night. If you elect the earlier start beware that it gets quite hot mid day, especially in the summer. See more about Maui Weddings and Maui Hawaii Honeymoons.

Forty five white wedding chairs lined the perfectly manicured Lower Wedding Knoll at the Sea Watch Resort, in Wailea. Bride, Marianne, her two sisters, and ten year old daughter Makeala,waited patiently for the last guest to arrive. Groom, Stephen, standing nervously in a Beautiful Circle of Flowers awaiting his Brides entrance turned to Officiate Bill Armstrong and said,” everyones here, we’re ready ” So began another memorable Maui’d Forever Wedding. There were tears, laughter, and the unmistakable look of I LOVE YOU written in the couples eyes. Harpist Lisa Porter, sang The Hawaiian Wedding Song, to the delight of all, while photographer Terry Rowe snapped photo after photo, capturing every important moment till the sun had disappeared into the ocean.
We wish Stephen and Marianne all the good that life has to offer, and from myself, Bill Armstrong, along with my business partner, Mark Steffan we hope they stay MAUI’D FOREVER.

An extremely wet morning gave way to clearing skies. Our wedding started at 5:30pm at Makena Surf. See that wedding site.

The couple arrived in their silver jeep wrangler. We sent the groom down to be microphoned while we got photo’s of the bride coming down the lush path. The bride, Melissa was adorned in a beautiful white wedding dress while Matthew was dressed in a dark blue pinstripe suit.

In the cove we had a circle of flowers where Matthew, Rev. Cleighton and Guitarist Kaleo waited for the bride. The wedding was blessed with a very comfortable cloud cover. The ceremony started with a glorious chant by our Hawaiian minister. You could see the joy in both the bride and the groom during the whole ceremony. After being pronounced man and wife, Kaleo played a great version of Brother Iz’s “Somewhere over the Rainbow”.

At the conclusion of the ceremony we did some after wedding photo and video shots including the famous “heart drawn in the sand” with the words “Maui’d Forever” written within. Another great shot was had when photographer Mark Steffan had them jump for joy with the ocean in the background.

Finally we drove the couple down to North Maluaka where chef Massimo had a tiki torch accented dinner for them both. We took a few pictures of the cake cutting and left the happy couple to enjoy their romantic gourmet dinner. They had the beach to themselves!