Venues

We toured 7 venues when we were in Hawaii.  We are deciding between our top two at the moment, but I thought I would post the other 5 we looked at as well.

Loulu Palm Estate
This was the very first venue we looked at. It was nice but it had the most expensive site fee and it would be a lot of work because everything has to be brought in to the site.

There is a little house to get ready in which includes bathrooms, but there is no back-up space or commercial kitchen for the caterer. The yard was nice with plenty of space and you could walk right out on the beach.

The beach was not as nice; it was small and had lots of debris on it like rocks and leaves and seaweed.














Ke Iki Bungalows
This location is a beachfront property with a number of small vacation rentals on the site.  I think this would be a very nice place to stay while in Hawaii, but we didn't want it for our wedding. The beach was amazing, but that was the only asset. I wanted something with more of the lush Hawaiian vegetation.

 The beach was really big, and there were not very many people there when we visited around noon.






The reception site was the space in front of the bungalows facing the water.  In order to hold an event there, you are required to rent at least the 5 beach front bungalows, if not the whole lot.

The beach is on the Pipeline, so you can see see the migrating whales and huge waves in the winter.



Haiku Gardens
This is our third favorite.  The food is really good, it is not expensive and it is pretty. Plus it has an air-conditioned restaurant to hold the reception in, but you have to be done with everything by 2:30pm.

 There are two fish ponds and a view of the mountains from up in the restaurant. You can not see the mountain when you are down in the garden, which is where the ceremony sites are located.

The food was some of the best we ate in Hawaii. We ordered Luau Pork, Ahi Poke and Coconut Shrimp.












We also looked at two resorts.  Having a wedding at a resort is more expensive, but it is almost no work for the bride and groom because the catering managers take care of everything.  We looked at one resort on near Waikiki and one on the North Shore.


The Kahala Resort
This resort was beautiful and it is located on the other side of Diamond Head from Waikiki so it was much less crowded. All of the resorts were about the same price for their wedding packages, but this one has really expensive rooms.

 The two ceremony sites were gazebos on a grassy lawn. They were in picturesque locations, but not what we were looking for.

There are 5 dolphins that "live" at the Kahala, so they offer Dolphin Adventures for children. The dolphins are in these pools right next to the buildings. The trainers were feeding them while we were on our site tour.










Turtle Bay Resort
This is the only resort on the North Shore and is much less expensive than the resorts on the South side of O'ahu. The ocean and beaches at the various sites were beautiful, but we were not impressed with the reception sites.  They were all basically grass lawns with palm trees. We have grass lawns and palm trees in Tucson.

 The one location I liked, but Charles did not, is the one shown above. It is called Bay View Lawn because it touches the sand of Turtle Bay (left). We went snorkeling in Turtle Bay and I was swimming with a sea turtle!

 Most of the reception sites were located right next to the 6-story main building. It felt like the building was towering over us.

 The Stables Lawn was further out, so it was more secluded, but you would have to rent portable toilets and you can see how bland it looks.

 The 18th green had the nicest landscaping of the reception sites at Turtle Bay. We didn't consider it as an option, though, because it has a site fee of $5,000 which doesn't include the required generator and portable toilets.

The 18th green also had a beautiful little cove on the beach adjacent to the lawn.