As I write this blog entry, it is 13 February 2010 - exactly one month to go till the big day!!!

Anyway, back to the story of our wedding.

After hiring our wedding planner, Christina, we went over to Oahu for a week to meet with her. We had already had several phone calls and emails with her where she suggested several venues, vendors and suppliers. We narrowed down her suggestions to one or two and she arranged for us to see the venues and meet the vendors during our trip to Hawaii.

We went in March time so we could see what the weather would be like for our actual wedding a year later. We were a bit concerned when we got there as it was REALLY windy, but almost all the locals we met assured us it was unnaturally windy for that time of year and we should be okay (fingers crossed).

We met with photographers, cake makers, florists, stationers, caterers and looked at venues. By the end of the week, we had made all our choices. It was a very very busy week! Most of our choices were actually really hard to make, as the vendors we met with and venues we saw were all so fantastic.

The photographer we have chosen is Visionari. We met with Jon and he was so great, and we felt really comfortable with him. Nick is a keen amateur photographer and they had a chat about lenses, which Nick loved. Jon also showed us some of their previous wedding albums which were all really amazing.

We are going to have three photographers on site, with one photographer solely dedicated to backing up the pictures so nothing is lost. Having two photographers is great because they get several different angles of the same moment, and if one photographer misses a moment, the other one usually gets it.

Many people who know I have my own cake business ask if I'm making the cake for our wedding. I'm not - making a wedding cake is always really stressful and involves a large amount of work in the 3 days before the wedding and even on the day of. I want to be as relaxed as possible for my wedding day. Also, I don't have access to a kitchen with a large oven over there, and bringing over all my equipment just isn't feasible. Nick also banned me from doing it, as he said he would hate to have to put up with a mega stressed Charms just before the wedding!

Our cake is being made by Tiers of Joy. The owner/operator, Leigh, is a fellow Aussie and makes really yummy cakes. We are having 3 tiers round, a coconut cake tier with milk chocolate mousse filling, lemon cake tier with lemon filling, and chocolate cake tier with raspberry coulis filling. Leigh uses a rolled buttercream rather than fondant (aka sugarpaste in the UK), which I like the taste of so much better (the only fondant I like the taste of is the one I make myself!). I will be making the sugar flowers to decorate the cake as I can do that months in advance.

Leigh has also very kindly agreed to make my favourite cake, Pavlova, which will be served as dessert. I really wanted pavlova at my wedding as I love it so much, shame it isn't suitable to be used as a wedding cake!

The florist we are using is Yvonne Design, who I've mentioned before in my blog post Our Aqua Blue and Frangipani Wedding which also has some pics of the sample centrepieces she made for us. She is a truly talented florist.

I've also mentioned our stationer before, Bradley & Lily Fine Stationary. Stacey is lovely and a real pleasure to work with (and also very talented). You can see the pics of the wonderful invitations she made for us in the Our Aqua Blue and Frangipani Wedding blog post.

The caterer we chose is Memoirs. Chef Peter invited us to his house high up on Diamond Head crater. It has an amazing view! He cooked for us there and his food is so delicious! He and his business manager are both really great, and we are very happy with our choice. We will be having several food stations at the wedding where food is freshly cooked to order, rather than a set meal. So guests can eat courses at their own pace and have as much or as little as they want. We are having some really fantastic food, here's a link to a PDF version of the menu:
http://www.charmayneandnick.com/docs/Memoirs_menu_v3.pdf

The venue choice was really hard. We had 2 venues we really loved, but in the end we chose Loulu Palm Estate because it is more private and has a later finishing time than the other venue. Loulu Palm is just gorgeous, it has it's own private beach and a vast green lawn, coconut trees, and a cute colonial style house. Here's a picture of it from our last visit there in January 2010:

I can't wait to see all of it put together in one months time!