Getting Married in Maui

Getting married on Maui has to be one of life's best experiences. I know, because my wife and I had a Maui wedding. In fact I asked my wife if she would "Maui me?" What better question can a guy ask his fiance? First you are going to take her to Maui and then you are going to "Maui her!" Maybe that's why I went with a company with that same unique name: Maui Me.

You can't go wrong with Maui Me Weddings. Susan, their booking agent, has been planning and coordinating both big and small weddings on Maui for over 15 years. So she knows all of the ins and outs about what to do and what NOT to do to get yourself a great Maui wedding. I highly recommend that you give her a ring at 800-856-3270.

Also, check out the great and exhaustive Maui wedding packages that the company offers. They really have a lot of Maui wedding services to offer. If you don't see what you want, be sure and ask Susan about it anyway as not everything is always on their website. Talk to Susan and I'm sure you won't want to use anyone else.

And BTW, Susan also has great travel ideas and accommodations that she can book for you. She has her own travel website so you can get some information from that as well which is located at Hawaii Travel.

Maui Wedding Packages

The best way to save money for your Maui wedding is to select the Maui wedding package that's just right for you. Now there are a lot of companies with a lot of different packages so I'll recommend the two which I feel have the most to offer.

If you want your choice of more extensive Maui wedding packages for this link to the Maui Me website. They are a higher end (but still very inexpensive) wedding company which gives awesome personalized service based upon 15 years of experience. They also have a nice page which compares the packages and shows you what's in each to help make your decision easier.

If you want a simpler and less expensive wedding let me recommend to you Affordable Maui Weddings. This website is quick and to the point and it has a lot of photos showing many of their past weddings. While the packages are not nearly as extensive in what they offer as with Maui Me, still you definitely like their prices if you want a cheap wedding. Their affordable Maui wedding packages are prices as low as anyone on the island.

Maui Weddings

Maui weddings are the most popular weddings in all of Hawaii. Did you know that more tourists come to Maui for their wedding than to any other Hawaiian island? It's true. In fact, there are more Maui weddings than all of the others combined. That just shows that many couples realize how exciting a Maui wedding really is.

To experience your very own Maui wedding let me offer you a few helpful suggestions. First, contact and book your Maui wedding coordinator BEFORE you book your flight and make your reservations for your hotel or condo accommodations. Why is that important?

Well, if you book your accommodations on the opposite side of the island from where you will be getting married, this will make your task of getting to your wedding much more difficult. And wouldn't you really want to get your Maui wedding planner's suggestions as to the best places to stay when it comes to being close to the beach where you'll be getting married? The west side of Maui is quite crowded and there is only a two lane highway coming around the pali (the cliffs) on the way to the south side of the island. Most of the best beaches are on the south side, and that is likely where you'll want to get married. If there is an accident on that highway coming around the west Maui mountains they often block the road and you won't even be able to leave the west side (and you'll miss your wedding!).

So it is a wise idea to talk to a professional wedding coordinator like Susan Craft before you book anything. Susan has been planning Maui weddings for over 15 years and she also has a lot of experience booking travel, hotels and condos for her couples, so she knows the best (and cheapest) accommodations that will give you the most bang for your buck.

So check out her website at Maui Me and you can also take a look at her Hawaii travel website here. She can be reached directly (toll free) at 800-856-3270. You can also check out her discount Maui weddings here.
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Eloping Maui

Eloping to Maui will probably be one of your most romantic decisions ever. There is definitely something to be said about just leaving the friends and even your family behind and escaping to the beautiful weather of an incredible Maui adventure just for the two of you.

Let's face it, when it is just about you two, it is more romantic. No family to complain and tell you what they think you should do. No friends tagging along when you would rather be alone. You don't want to have to entertain your family and friends and that's why eloping on Maui is such a great idea for so many couples.

Now if you are worried about what your family will say if you leave them behind, I would make absolutely certain that you hired a Maui wedding company that can give you some great photography as well even as a video of your wedding and the romantic time afterwards as you wait for the sunset. Then when you get home you can show your family the images and the video of what you experience so that they can enjoy your joy as well.

So if you're planning to get married by eloping to Hawaii, I recommend that you go with one of the great Maui wedding companies that are available. If you want a more extensive wedding, I would recommend that you check out Maui Me, which is a full service Maui wedding company. If you want a fast and inexpensive Maui wedding I would recommend that you check out Affordable Maui Weddings. Check out some of the beaches that are available at: Maui wedding beaches.

Maui Beach Weddings

Maui beach weddings are the most popular weddings in all of Hawaii. There is nothing that compares with getting married on one of Maui's incredible beaches, most of which face into the western sky where the best sunsets can be viewed.

Just imagine yourself standing on a pristine beach with the smell of flowers in your hair and in your bouquet, while the sun slowly sinks towards a golden horizon. As the waves lap on the sandy beach, a minister ties your knot, and the two of you enjoy the ambiance of this romantic setting while your photographer and/or videographer catch all of those intimate moments in this uncrowded beach setting. Truly romantic. And memorable for a life.

A few years back, I made this my own reality, having my own Maui wedding on the beach. We had a minister, a bouquet, haku lei for my bride plus two leis for both of us, sparkling apple cider and a wedding cake, incredible photography along with a videographer who captured unbelievable footage and put it all into a great video. What more could I have asked for with a small Maui beach wedding.

If you want to make this your own reality, as I did, let me recommend that you go with the same company that I used for my own wedding. It is Maui Me Weddings, and they can get everything you want for your wedding big or small, elaborate or simple. Take a look at their Maui wedding packages which are full of value and great services. And while your looking at their site, take a look at some of the extra island wedding services that they offer.

Beach Weddings in Hawaii

Beach weddings in Hawaii are extremely popular. In fact, if you want a beach wedding, there is probably no place on earth more exciting than Hawaii. Any Hawaiian island is great for a beach wedding, although some are simply better than others. Let's take a look at each of the major islands and discuss how they are for beach weddings.

The Island of Oahu (where Honolulu is located) is the busiest of all the Hawaiian islands. With more than a million people crammed onto this isle, you can imagine that it tends to be crowded. The beaches tend to have a lot of people on them. For this reason, finding a good location for a more intimate beach wedding location tends to be a bit of a problem. Oahu has just become too commercialized for my tastes.

The Big Island of Hawaii is truly big. If you try to drive around it, you will discover that it takes a long time, and you will often not even see the ocean because you'll be so far from it. Hawaii doesn't have a lot of great beaches. They are few and far between. What it has most are rocky cliffs and impassable shorelines. So it is difficult to find good beaches where you can do a wedding. The Kona Coast is probably the best place for a wedding, but even there, you'll want to be aware of the air quality issues. Because Hawaii has an active volcano, the island often has a lot of vog (which is volcano smog) hanging over it. Whether you can see it or not, it will impact your ability to breath comfortably.

Kauai is a small island that receives a lot of rain. Most of the cities and beaches on Kauai are situation on the east, north and south sides of the island. On the east the current is dangerous and you want to swim there with caution. Other than the fact that it rains a lot, you want to be aware that the best place to have a sunset beach wedding in on beaches that face into the west (where the sun sets). And Kauai is just not set up very well for that.

Maui is, by far, the best island for beach weddings in Hawaii. It has more and better sandy beaches on the south and western sides of the island that are facing right into the setting sun. I've experienced thousands of sunsets on the beaches of Maui and I can tell you that they are almost awesome. It is only rare that you get a poor sunset on Maui.

If you do decide to have a beach wedding in Hawaii you'll be happier if you go to Maui. I would recommend two places for you to check out if you want to be married on a beach on this island. First is Maui Me Weddings, which is a company that can give you great more customized weddings. The second is Affordable Maui Weddings which has a website with probably the best prices on Maui. Either way, you'll want to check out Maui's incredible beaches.

Maui Destination Weddings

I can't think of a better destination wedding location than Maui Hawaii. Maui has been voted the best island in the world something like sixteen times in a row by the readers of Conde Nast "Traveler Magazine" so that says something about how great the island is just for visiting.

And for couples who are on a mission to tie the knot, Maui is a perfect locale. There is just something so romantic about the place. All the flowering trees keep an exciting fragrance in the air. It truly is intoxicating. The mountains surrounded by the best beaches in all of Hawaii make this isle the perfect definition of paradise. But even more, there is so much to do after your wedding is over. The activities available on Maui are second to none.

This is why I highly recommend that you choose Maui for your destination wedding venue. Now if you want to plan a larger wedding let me recommend Maui Me as the company that you should look at first. They have coordinated many large weddings on the islands dating back over a period of 15 years, so they know what they're doing. You can read about larger weddings in the Maui wedding planner section of the Maui Me website.

If you want a simple less complicated wedding at a reasonable price I would send you to the Affordable Maui Weddings website. Again, they have some excellent prices for weddings without a lot of extras.

A Cheaper Maui Wedding

If you want a cheaper Maui wedding let me suggest that you take a look at the Affordable Maui Weddings website. This company has a good and simple website that is full of interesting information to help you have a simple Maui beach wedding.

While you're on there site you should probably also take a look at their wedding packages pages. Obviously, you'll get the best possible prices when you choose a package for your wedding services. You can always add other services through their ala carte menu if there is something missing from the package you choose.

Finally, if you want a really cheaper Maui wedding you should have it on the beach. Because the beaches have only a minimal State access few, they are the least expensive location on the island for a romantic Maui wedding. On the Affordable site you will want to take a look at the south Maui beaches which they use the most and recommend to their couples. That a look at this beaches page and several links off of it.

Maui Wedding Locations

There are many great Maui wedding locations to choose from. From inexpensive to expensive, the range is broad and the choices are many.

Many couples prefer to get married on the beach. All of the beaches in Maui are considered public by the State (although the access to them might not be). There are now restrictions on which beaches you can have weddings at as the State has become more involved. Your Maui wedding planner will therefore have to issue a beach access permit for you and comply by all of the governmental restrictions (so its wise to use a good coordinator).

Every good Maui wedding company will have there own preferences for which beaches they like to use the most. This is important because they will usually have experienced both the good and the bad conditions at each of the different wedding sites and will tend to have their favorites. You really want to listen to the company you choose. Check here to see the beaches that Affordable Maui Weddings uses sites for their beach weddings.

The are also a number of gardens available on Maui which allow small weddings. In addition to the gardens, there are several restaurants with garden-like settings that can be used for weddings and/or receptions.

Another choice for weddings are the waterfall sites, of which their are two currently available. One is a little out of the way and offers a panoramic view of a garden along with a beautiful ocean crashing up against the cliff. This site is definitely worth looking into for medium to small groups.

Another choice in your Maui wedding sites is the places which the resorts have set up for weddings. Unfortunately, these have a tendency to be a little more on the pricey side. But there are a lot of resorts available on the island.

Finally, if you are interested in a wedding venue for a larger wedding, that is certainly available. There are some excellent private estates right on the ocean in Maui which a good wedding coordinator will know about.

Destination Weddings Maui

Destination weddings can be an amazing experience. And Maui just has to be the best destination wedding location in the world. This is also because Maui is the most popular island in the world, rated by the readers of Conde Nast Traveler as the number one island on the planet for something like 15 years in a row. 

Maui is also the best of the Hawaiian islands to be married on. Why? Because it has the best beaches facing the west for sunset weddings. Oahu is just too crowded. The big island (of Hawaii) is just too big with air quality problems (because of the volcano vog). Most of Kauai's best beaches are on the east side of the island which makes getting a sunset hard. 

So you can't go wrong when you think about getting married on Maui in Hawaii, especially if you want a sunset wedding (and who doesn't because the sunsets are so consistently great). Take a look at some of the better Maui beaches to get married on.  

The company that I would recommend would be Affordable Maui Weddings which has excellent prices. Take a look at their Maui wedding packages page which has a lot of affordable offerings.

A Small Maui Wedding

I believe that there is nothing more special for a couple in love than a small Maui wedding. Years ago a wedding coordinator at one of the bigger hotels on the west side of Maui told me that she pitied those couples who came to Maui for their wedding all by themselves. At the time her comment seemed reasonable. But over the years I performed many weddings for all sorts of couples with different sized guests lists (or not guests at all).

Let me tell you, after performing thousands of weddings on Maui, my experience and feelings ended up being quite different from my coordinator friend. I discovered that the larger the wedding (generally) the more stressful the wedding and the less likely that the couple would enjoy the affair. But couples that came just by themselves or with a very low number of family and friends seemed to be MUCH more happy about their wedding experience than those who had larger weddings.

With larger weddings there is a lot of stress. You also find that mothers-in-law and mothers of the bride could end up dramatically adding to the stress by their over reactions. My experience was that the larger the wedding, the more likely that the couple would struggle through the whole experience.

Now of course this was not always true. We coordinated a lot of large weddings that went off without a hitch and the couples just seemed ecstatic about the results. But stress definitely has a way of jumping into a larger wedding that it usually won't with a small wedding ceremony.

And one thing that my wife and I came to really enjoy was coordinating weddings where the couple came just by themselves and were so much in love. Let's face it, when you only have to think about pleasing each other at your wedding, it's often just easier.

So don't apologize to yourself or anyone else for having a small Maui wedding. And picture yourselves standing on a beach looking out at a gorgeous Maui sunset.

Affordable Maui Weddings

An affordable Maui wedding, that's what so many of those coming to Hawaii want. Will I have good news for you. Weddings on the best island in Hawaii (which I believe is Maui) are surprisingly affordable. Because of the number of weddings there and a few great vendors, you can get what you want at a very reasonable price.

If you compare getting married on Maui with getting married in virtually any other exotic locale, you'll find that there is virtually no comparable savings elsewhere. Weddings on Maui are incredibly cost effective. There is enough competition to keep the prices way down below what you would spend for anything near as comparable at home.

When you start looking for a wedding company I would suggest that you start with Affordable Maui Weddings, which is found at the website with that same title. Once you find their website you'll probably want to take a look around as they give a lot of great information and show a lot of top quality photos of many of their past weddings. Their Maui beach wedding pages are great place to some of the most exquisite beach locations for your wedding.

But you certainly won't want to miss their wedding packages page. Prices start at $247 for a simple weddings! Of course you can get a lot more by spending a little more so take a look at what the company has to offer.

Maui Beach Wedding Packages

A small Maui beach wedding can be so romantic. And what you need to make that happen is your choice of inexpensive beach wedding packages.

You can and should look around for a wedding company in Maui Hawaii which can give you a great wedding at a price you can afford. That's often very hard to fine and it can take some searching before you find such a company.

To speed up your search, my recommendation is for a company which has a great Maui wedding planner. That company is Affordable Maui Weddings and their coordinator's name is Susan. She's been booking and coordinating weddings since the company began 15 years ago, so she is extremely knowledgeable.

Also, you'll find that she is nice to talk to about your wedding. Susan has a wealth of  ideas about how you can have a cheap Maui beach wedding and she has the packages to give you exactly what you want. She's definitely not pushy and she'll be warm and personable on the phone to you.

On their website they even have a page that tells you how to book. Susan can be reached at 1-800-791-2299. If you want a cheap Maui beach wedding, she is definitely the person I would contact first.

Maui Wedding Packages

If you are thinking about getting married in paradise, it is probably going to be a good idea for you to search for companies that have clearly priced Maui wedding packages. In most cases, if you want an inexpensive wedding, you won't want to just go "ala carte". That's usually the most expensive way to go. You'll find that most companies have packages from which you can choose.

When you look for packages I would suggest that you find the smallest package that doesn't have anything in it that you don't want. Most companies are unlikely to take something out of a package (because it will skew the discount nature of the package). So find the package that contains everything you want, then add in any additional services that are missing from your wish list in their ala carte menu.

When I owned a Maui wedding company, we computed what the ala carte price of all the services within each of our packages because we wanted to make absolutely certain that it was a savings for our couples to choose our packages. We found that offering packages also made
our job easier. Knowing that a couple had chosen our "Aloha Package" (for instance) meant that we knew exactly what we needed to do at the wedding (plus any additional add-ons). So Maui wedding packages are an advantage for everyone.

There are some services which our brides really liked. Many loved the thought that it was included in three out of our four packages for one of our beauty consultants offer room service, visiting their hotel or condo, and doing up their hair and make-up a couple of hours before their wedding. This was a great feature and it encouraged many brides to choose our company.

A Good Maui Wedding Planner

What does it take to find a good Maui wedding planner. The task might seem easy enough if you search online for "Maui wedding planner" or "Maui wedding services". A lot of companies will certainly come up. But how can you know for certain if a company is truly reliable?

That is a definitely a good question. I personally know of two Maui wedding companies that give absolutely HORRIBLE service. Both have been in existence for ages and both are well known by other companies because their owners are SO difficult to deal with. The funny thing is that one of those companies is highly rated on Google. The man who owns that company is an absolute master at getting good recommendations even though he also has a ton of clients who have hated his service. How he does it I'll never know.

Although I don't want to mention the names of those two companies I would say that one of them is run by a rather testy woman who is up on the west side of Maui and the guy who is so bad has a German accent and actually lives in New York! (He tries to farm out the weddings he books, but less and less local companies will work with him). So be forewarned.

You do want to be careful when you choose your Maui wedding planner. Most important you want to evaluate how you are treated on the telephone. If you are treated poorly before you even arrive on the island, it does not bode well for your wedding later. Also, ask if they are members of the Better Business Bureau (and even check with the BBB on their recommendations).

The company which I would recommend is Maui Me and also its more inexpensive website Affordable Maui Weddings. Susan

Affordable Maui Wedding Packages

If you're smart, you want to choose your wedding services from a list of affordable Maui wedding packages. And that's exactly what the company Affordable Maui Weddings offers (yes, their name says it all). You can go to their website and see their packages which are truly inexpensive.

It really makes you wonder how they can do weddings so cheaply considering what a wedding costs at home on the mainland. I know when I was in the Maui wedding business I often had brides tell me that my prices were MUCH more reasonable than those of photographers at home. And no photographer on the mainland can match the incredible beauty of the backgrounds which you get on a sunset wedding on the south side of Maui (facing into the setting sun).

Again, the beauty of these affordable wedding package
s is that they can include as much or as little of what you want in your wedding as you like. You can add a cake, you can add a hair and makeup service for the bride, you can even add a fully catered private dinner for two on a lawn overlooking the ocean. Amazing.

And again, the prices are so inexpensive for what you get. So here's how you book your wedding. Take a look at their website or call Susan at 800-791-2299.

Inexpensive Maui Weddings

Inexpensive Maui weddings might seem like an oxymoron. How can you go to Maui and get married and still have it be inexpensive. Well, of course, there is always the cost of going to vacation to a place like Maui where you have to pay for your airfare and your accommodations. Depending on where you live, that won't be cheap.

But when you consider the cost of a couple eloping who are probably going to go some place nice for their honeymoon, you suddenly discover that it can really be inexpensive to have a wedding in an exotic locale like Maui. Just consider how much it will cost you to have a big sit-down wedding at home and you'll see that flying off to paradise is really not that bad at all.

When I was in the wedding business in Hawaii we performed a wedding for a couple from Connecticut who brought nine guess with them. They figured out how expensive their wedding would be and came to the conclusion that it was much less expensive to come to Maui than it was to stay home and do the big family wedding in a rented hall.

If its less expensive, AND so much more fun, why would you want to get married at home?

I encourage you to give a great Maui wedding company a call (that I used to own). Their coordinator is Susan and she's been booking weddings since the company began, so she knows a lot about Maui weddings. Susan can give you all sorts of ideas about how you can have a cheap Maui wedding an
d you can decide if you want to work with her or not.

She can be reached at 1-800-791-2299. If you want a cheap Maui wedding, she is definitely the first person I would contact.

Escaping to Maui to Get Married

What an exciting idea. Escape from your own world and go to Maui where you can tie the knot in a romantic beach front ceremony. And the best part of that fantasy is that it doesn't have to cost you an arm and a leg.

For those who don't want to break the bank, I would suggest Affordable Maui Weddings, a company that has incredible prices on inexpensive beach weddings for couples coming just with a few friends. Take a look at their affordable wedding packages page to see just how cheap they are. 

If you are set upon having a large and more extensive Maui wedding, you can still do that inexpensively. Maui Me is a company that offers more complex services and has experience putting larger weddings even at private Maui venues. Take a look at the Hawaii wedding packages they have to offer.

Regardless of what you choose to do, there is no better feeling that to escape to Maui to get married. So the question you two should ask yourself is "Will you Maui me?"

Maui Elopement Packages

If you are going to elope in Maui, my guess is that you want to have an inexpensive wedding. Hey, in these tight times, there's absolutely nothing wrong with saving money. And the best way to do that is to find a company which has some decent Maui wedding packages for your elopement.

Now, as I mentioned in my last post, I no longer do weddings in Hawaii. But if I was going to go back to the islands to get married, I would definitely go to Maui, and the company that I would seek out to do my wedding is definitely Affordable Maui Weddings. They have the best prices on the island and some  incredibly cheap Maui wedding packages for your elopement.

So take a look at their wedding packages. You will be absolutely amazed that they can perform a destination weddings in a place like Maui Hawaii at a price this cheap. You really, seriously, want to consider getting married in Hawaii with Affordable Maui Weddings.

A Cheap Maui Wedding

Is it possible to have an absolutely cheap Maui wedding in a beautiful paradise like Hawaii?

It absolutely is. How cheap? Can you imagine having a wedding for $249 including minister and flowers? And for only $425 you can have pictures shot by a professional photographer. What an amazing and inexpensive price for a wedding in paradise. These are two of the less expensive Affordable Maui Wedding Packages available to any couple. If you want a little more in the way of "trimmings" they certainly have a lot of other add-on services that they offer.

No matter why kind of Maui wedding you imagine and that you can see in your dreams, you can certainly get it from this great company. They've been in business for 15 years and they know a LOT about planning Maui weddings that are romantic, intimate and just plain fun.

I would really encourage you to give their wedding coordinator a call. Her name is Susan and she's been booking and coordinating weddings since the company began, so she is extremely knowledgeable. That's one thing that is nice about talking to her, Susan will give you all sorts of ideas about how you can have a cheap Maui wedding and you can decide if you want to work with her or not. She's definitely not pushy and she is very warm and personable on the phone.

Susan can be reached at 1-800-791-2299. If you want a cheap Maui wedding, she is definitely the first person I would contact.

Should You Elope in Hawaii?

"Elope Hawaii" is the title of my most popular post on this blog. And I was amazed when I saw just how popular that post actually was. It was more than twice as many views as either of the next two popular posts! So its obvious that a lot of couples are seriously thinking about eloping to Hawaii.

Now because so many are interested in this subject, I'm going to write several different posts that should go a long ways to satisfying those who are thinking about running off to paradise and tying the knot all by themselves (or with just a few family and friends).

For years I ran my own wedding company in Maui, Hawaii. Over 14 years I saw big weddings and small—about 2500 of them in all. (That's a lot of weddings to coordinate!) I can tell you from experience that the smallest weddings with just the couple were inevitably the happiest. It seemed to me that the couples who brought no one but themselves had so little to worry about that they enjoyed the entire experience so much more.

And from a wedding provider's point of view, I would tell you that each of their Maui beach weddings were so much more fun for all of us who were the vendors. My wife and I really did  enjoy helping each of these couples tie the knot because they were able to focus so much more on each other and experience their love more fully. It just reminds you of why you're there and makes the whole experience so much more meaningful for the couple.

So first and foremost, don't ever feel that you have to be ashamed at thinking about yourselves and planning your own elopement in Maui.