Oh dear, as part of the after effects of the tragic earthquake that hit Chile earlier today, they are now expecting a tsunami to hit Hawaii!

We are getting married by a beach on the North Shore of Oahu in 2 weeks time, and apparently all coastal areas of all islands of Hawaii could be hit quite hard. This could leave us without a wedding venue...

I know this is a small problem in comparison to the tragedy that has struck so many in Chile, but I can't help but be concerned. If our venue is hit hard, we will be up a certain creek without a paddle.

I doubt highly that we could postpone it to a later time, as most of our guests won't be able to afford to make another trip to Hawaii. Some of them have already left to go to our wedding. Even postponing a day would mean some people wouldn't be able to make it as we have several guests flying out the day after our wedding date.

We could try to find another venue at short notice, possibly the Trump Tower in Waikiki where we are staying. But it is a hotel without any outdoor space, so it would have to be an indoor wedding. It would feel a lot like there was no point going to all the trouble and expense to plan our dream wedding if we just ended up having an indoor ceremony with a package hotel deal.

Our wedding insurance also doesn't cover fire, flood or acts of God, so if things do go pear shaped we won't even be able to get most of our money back.

We are keeping a careful eye on the tsunami as it approaches Hawaii, it is due to hit in 2 hours time. Fingers crossed it won't be too bad!

I was quite surprised at how hard choosing the wedding favours for our guests turned out to be. It was probably my own fault, I was extremely fussy! I wanted to give everyone something that they would actually want to keep and/or find useful, as they were coming such a long way to attend our wedding in Hawaii. I definitely didn't want to hand out those candied almonds that were so popular at weddings when I was a child -  I hated them! I also didn't want to give chocolates, as I wanted something that would provide a lasting memory to our guests.

I have now visited just about every website that sells wedding favours about 20 times. It was quite frustrating and tiring! I finally chose some little manicure kits for the ladies and sterling silver key rings that had bar tool implements (like a bottle shaped swiss army knife, see pic below) for the men. But then we decided NOT to have a seating plan, we would just put guests on tables but not tell them where on the tables to sit. This posed a problem as there was no way to guarantee that a guest would sit at a seat with the correct favour for their gender.

So it was back to the websites to find unisex favours that everyone would want to keep! Unfortunately nothing was grabbing my attention. We considered beach themed picture frames, double happiness Chinese candles, sterling silver fortune cookie knick knacks, personalised shot glasses, but none of them seemed like things that every guest would actually want to keep. At one stage I thought about combining my Chinese heritage with the destination of our wedding, Hawaii, by getting mini bamboo steamers (they are so cute, see the picture below!) and putting pukka shell necklaces in them, as they are unisex accessories. But I thought about the guests going and realised not many of them were the pukka shell necklace wearing types.

But then we decided to have one long rectangular table, which is what I'd actually initially wanted but we didn't think we'd be able to fit it under the marquee. But once the RSVPs were in, we were 10 guests less than our highest estimate, so the one long table was back in play! This also meant assigned seating, which also meant gender specific wedding favours were back on the table (so to speak).

However, I also had very specific favour boxes in mind. I wanted them to be square, aqua blue, with white ribbon around them, and a foam frangipani flower attached to the top. Which sounded beautiful to me! HOWEVER, the manicure kits and the box the bar tools came in didn't fit into the largest aqua blue box we could find! So back to the drawing board again!

I really couldn't find anything else for the men that I liked, so we ordered one of the bar tools, took it out of its packaging and tried it in the favour box. It fit easily! One problem solved.

I spent WEEKS agonising over the womens favours (mother of pearl trinket boxes, silver cased mirrors, glass coasters) then hit on the perfect idea - sterling silver frangipani pendants. I spent ages trying to find some that were pretty, not cheap and tacky looking, not too small, but around the same price as the bar tools. I eventually found a wholesaler that could do them at a reasonable price, only a few cents more than the bar tools. This is what they looked like on the website:

But the wholesaler didn't take non-US credit cards! So we contacted our wedding planner (who does have a US credit card) and got her to order them for us and add the cost to our bill. Unfortunately we couldn't order just one, so we ended up ordering all 25 sight unseen, which was really risky as we didn't have the budget to order something else if they turned out to be awful!

I still haven't seen the pendants, our wedding planner received them a couple of weeks ago. But she assures me that they look great and not cheap and tacky - let's hope so!

One other thing we are providing our guests as an added little gift are some beautiful rice paper and bamboo parasols to shield them from the sun. Asian Import Store sells some really lovely ones, and the more you buy, the cheaper it is per parasol. They had some amazing colours and patterns, but in the end we decided to keep them clean and white. Here's the ones we chose:

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!

I wanted a wedding that was outdoors, fairly laid back, beautiful, and fun. I'm really not into traditional weddings with lengthy church services and receptions that follow the same formula - boring and not funny speeches, a set schedule of events that MUST be adhered to, and an air of stiff formality. To be fair, there are probably lots of weddings that have church services and traditional receptions that aren't overly formal or boring, and I have been to some like that, but the overwhelming majority unfortunately weren't.

I looked through tons of bridal magazines for ideas on reception decor, table settings, ceremony venues, etc. I cut out all the pictures I really liked and kept them in a folder to show our wedding planner, Christina.

I saw several things I really liked the look of. Some of the outdoor weddings just looked lovely on beautiful green lawns with white marquee tents and lots of gorgeous flowers. One table setting in particular caught my eye, it wasn't set outdoors, but I loved the blue colour and the lovely ivory and white flowers with hints of yellow. So it was from this table setting that I decided on the colour scheme of aqua blue, white and yellow.

One of my favourite flowers is frangipanis aka plumerias. I grew up in Papua New Guinea where these flowers are abundant, and many associate them with the tropical paradise that is Hawaii. They are white with a large splash of yellow in the centre, which matched the inspiration picture above perfectly. So I decided I wanted to have a theme of frangipanis, but a more subtle theme, where frangipanis would be used quite sparingly, but would still appear throughout our wedding.

For the wedding ceremony, I loved one particular outdoor setup I saw, which I am hoping to emulate (with different flowers though, and using our colour scheme):

For the reception, we are having a white marquee tent with draping, and one really long table for our 40 guests. The table linens are a crisp clean white, with an aqua blue table runner. There will also be tall vases of flowers alternating with shorter vases of flowers running down the length of the table. It turns out that fresh frangipanis are not the best flowers to use at a wedding as they brown very quickly once cut. So frangipanis in my bouquet and table centrepieces were out. I opted for ivory roses and other flowers with yellow throats such as white orchids and lilies. We are using a really amazing florist, Yvonne Design, here are the sample tall and short centrepieces she made up for us (the aqua blue table runner in the picture is the same as the ones we'll be using for our reception):

The frangipanis are to put in an appearance on the table as part of the favour box decorations. The favour boxes are going to be in the aqua blue of our theme with white ribbon tied around it (very Tiffanys!), and a fake frangipani on the top made out of foam latex. These fake frangipanis are really realistic looking, unlike silk ones.

The foam latex frangipanis also put in an appearance on the exterior of the pocketfold for our wedding invitations, which I designed by borrowing bits and pieces from other invitations and making something I liked. It was put together by Bradley & Lily Fine Stationary in Hawaii. Here is the outside of the invitations:

The invitation itself and the insert cards were designed by a really lovely and talented stationary designer, Stacey from Bradley & Lily. She used our aqua blue, yellow and white colour scheme and a double frangipani motif for all our stationary. Here is the inside of the pocketfold of our frangipani invitations:

The invitations turned out amazing, and I was so thrilled with them. Almost all of our guests complimented us on them, saying they were the most beautiful wedding invitations they'd ever seen :)

Let's hope the actual wedding is just as breathtaking!

Wedding planners are awesome! They know exactly what to do to plan a wedding (as well they should, seeing as it's their job). They know all the good vendors, so you don't have to go looking for any as they present you with 2 or 3 of the ones best suited to you in each category and help you decide which one to use. They know all the equipment you will need and know where to hire or acquire it at a price to suit your budget. They know all the little details that you probably won't until it's too late. They also keep you on track budget and time wise and make sure everything is on schedule. If they do their job right, they take a lot of the work and stress out of planning a wedding.

Picking the date for our wedding was relatively easy. Choosing where to have it was a lot trickier. For a many people, that's not too much of a burning issue. You usually start looking for venues in your town or city, or maybe the neighbouring town or city. But for us, we had to start with the question of which COUNTRY to have our wedding in. I am from Australia and Nick is from New Zealand and we both have a lot of family and friends in these countries. And of course Nick and I live in London, where we also have a lot of close friends.