I would have happily had the wedding in Australia or New Zealand, but to my parents that was a big no-no. The problem is that Chinese weddings are not small. You have to invite your family, extended family, their extended family, and their extended family's uncle's sister-in-law's second cousin. Most of the people we would have to invite (and who would also turn up) were in or around Australia. So my parents requested we have our wedding as far from Australia as possible so we could keep the guest count to a reasonable number instead of around 600. 

London is pretty darn far from Australia, but for me it just wasn't a candidate. I knew I wanted an outdoor wedding with lots of sunshine and warm weather. Which ruled London out. While holidaying in Hong Kong with my parents, we visited the Chinese island of Sanya. My father loved the idea of me getting married there, but it turns out you can't legally marry in China unless you are a Chinese citizen, and even then you can only marry in the province you are a citizen of. It was suggested to us we could go to a registry office in Hong Kong first, legally marry, then fly to Sanya and have a "commitment" ceremony a day or so later. But I didn't like that idea, I wanted my family and friends to witness the actual moment that Nick and I became husband and wife.

Which is when Dad hit on the idea of Hawaii (one of his favourite movies is Elvis's Blue Hawaii). We have a Hawaiian ancestor, and Hawaii certainly has a lot of sunny warm weather, and it is gorgeous to boot, so I loved the idea. The only stumbling block was that I knew my older sister had always said she wanted to get married in Hawaii (we watched the wedding scene in Blue Hawaii a LOT when we were kids). I didn't want to steal her dream wedding, so I asked her if it would be okay with her, and if it wasn't then I was happy to have the wedding somewhere else. My sister had been previously engaged and had hoped to marry her then fiance in Hawaii, and the failed engagement had soured the idea for her as far as her own wedding was concerned, but she thought it would be lovely for someone else's weddings. So with her blessing, we decided on Hawaii.

We tossed up between Maui and Oahu, and decided on Oahu as most people would have to fly into Oahu to get to Maui anyway, and it seemed like there was a greater variety of things to do on Oahu, with something for everyone. So now we had the date, country, and location - we were really cooking!!!