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.