The Bottom Line
If you intend to get married in Hawaii, this could be the only wedding planner you need. This comprehensive paperback reveals everything you ought to know about island weddings. It includes real-life stories and, most importantly, provides details on hundreds of wedding professionals you can contact directly to help you to create a day to remember.
Pros
- Contains information on 700+ local Hawaii vendors
- Simple, easy-to-scan format
- Offers numerous tips from a professional wedding planner
Cons
- A wedding planner at a good hotel can handle most of the planning for you
- No special mention of gay ceremonies
- Vendor descriptions in some places are more hype than help
Description
- Written by an experienced wedding planner.
- Detailed planning timeline included.
- Provides vignettes of real couples and their actual Hawaii weddings for inspiration.
- Suggests practical questions to pose to wedding vendors.
- Offers non-Hawaii-specific information on wedding gowns, etiquette, and other wedding necessities.
- Fifty pages of worksheets in the back of the book can help you keep track of the details.
Guide Review - Hawaii Weddings Made Simple
Hours from the US mainland by air, Hawaii isn't the easiest place to stage a wedding -- although it is certainly one of the most beautiful. This book by Keri Shepherd, who lives in Hawaii and owns a local wedding planning business, can help would-be brides and grooms plan their event long distance. She's opened up her Rolodex to share with readers an extensive list of vendors, organized by island. Listings include contact names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses for local Hawaii businesses. There's everything from officiants and florists to hair and makeup professionals, bakers, bands, photographers, and more. The book's strength is its detailed listings of chapels and other ceremony and reception sites. There is information on marrying outdoors in city parks and beaches as well as more expensive places, such as restaurants and hotels. Because Shepard is a local pro who knows her way around these islands, she can also point you to uncommon wedding settings, such as tea houses and cruises, museum grounds and even horse farms.
