Our engagement story & wedding planning (including COVID delay)

This is not quite the complete story but I wanted to keep this log in case I want to look back on it in the future. Most of these details might seem extremely mundane, but sometimes I like to remember all the little things :) I purposefully held back with some parts because this whole event is something personal to me/us and I know that once the information was out there, I can't take it back, but hope it still paints a little bit of a picture. 

(Some portions of this post were written/drafted pre-pandemic when I was much more hopeful. If I seem to jump around a bit within this post or even within a section, that's probably why. But I did want to keep my original thoughts recorded if they made sense. A lot has changed in the last 1.5 years!)

A note

My husband and I actually got legally married in late November 2019. There were some extenuating circumstances and opportunities that facilitated that decision in that specific time frame, but they're  irrelevant now. We were already engaged at that point and had started planning the wedding including booking vendors and still wanted/intended to have a larger celebration on our originally planned date (Nov 2020, about a year later).

All "wedding" details in this post are related to the larger event we originally meant to have with family and friends. After we ended up getting legally married, this larger event was meant to be more like a "wedding celebration" since we didn't need anything more official (for the government) and we had already planned a bunch of it anyway, so we wanted to continue with that vision. We were a bit lucky that we didn't have to make any decisions about if/when to get legally married when the pandemic hit (since we already had that taken care of) and that guided a lot of the decisions we ended up making.

Timeline overview:

  Aug 2019 - engagement

  Sept 2019 - wedding planning begins. date set for Nov 2020. book venue, photographer.

  Nov 2019 - get legally married (unplanned personal reasons, unrelated to COVID). still plan to have larger event (approx 150-175 guests) in Nov 2020, continue booking vendors (videographer, HMU, florist, etc).

  Mar 2020 - start of pandemic restrictions. planning pauses until July 2020

  July 2020 - decide to delay Nov 2020 event to May 2021, check vendor availability, rebook as necessary & then planning pauses until Feb 2021

  Feb 2021 - downsize guestlist to close family (approx 50) and downsize event, planning for event ramps up 

  May 2021 - wedding 

The proposal - August 10, 2019
There isn't much of a story here and really no photos to go along with it. This wasn't a proposal meant for social media, but it still really fit who we both are.

We had had previous discussions about marriage and engagement, but the moment itself was a surprise, maybe even to both of us.
Due to some family logistics and travel, we didn't officially announce to our families until later in the month and then announcements to friends followed shortly after.

The ring

My husband had been holding onto his late grandmother's ring for a bit now, and it was intended for this ring to be the "placeholder" ring until we decided on something more permanent. He didn't have it when he proposed, but when we tried it on later back at home, it somehow fit almost exactly! I had never shopped for rings before, so I took a couple weeks to do some research and we went to a couple mall jewelry stores to see what they were like as well. His grandmother's ring doesn't specifically hold sentimental value to either of us (and in fact was purchased only in 2005, not when his grandparents got engaged), but it's a really nice ring on its own and at the time, we saw no reason to spend more money when there wasn't something else we were dying to get.
              
 A couple jewelers/vendors that I particularly liked when doing research were: Fairtrade Jewelry Co, MineralogyDesign on Etsy (specifically this ring!), Laurie Fleming Jewelry (for the Asai Garden ring and other bespoke pieces) and Kataoka Jewelry (particularly the Diamond Rose Ring-Rhine).
After getting bombarded with jewelry ads on Instagram for a several months and finding a designer I really loved (after getting two other rings from her), I commissioned a custom Brilliant Daphne ring from Laurie Fleming in May 2020 (after being married for about 6 months). We decided that we wanted something a little bit more traditional appearing but still a bit special (something not too similar to his grandmother's ring otherwise what's the point), and this essentially fit the bill. Adding my personal twist on it was requesting a slightly colored sapphire (my birthstone) as the center stone instead of a clear/colorless diamond. After reviewing many super tempting choices with Laurie's team (from lavender ovals, to pink hexagons, and even a silky triangular stone), we decided on a round, Old European Cut sapphire in a pale "pink" (more lavender irl) color with some visible inclusions. Although I was really intrigued by alternate shapes, ultimately we wanted this piece to be a bit more classic. My husband assured me that I could always get myself an alternate shaped stone ring in the future on my own lol. Here is my previous blog post on the rings I ordered from Laurie Fleming, including the new engagement ring.

Wedding planning - September 2019 through October 2020 May 2021
Setting the date [November 28, 2020 May 23, 2021]
We initially weren't sure about the length of the engagement (2 years? 2 months?) but eventually settled on autumn of 2020. Autumn is a season we both enjoy and would be enough time after my husband's PE exam + bypassing the hottest time of year in the summer. I also thought this would give us the best chance of getting a venue we liked as many of the most popular places seemed to be booked long in advance. Due to a number of cousins being on the mainland for school, we thought it would be best if they could combine travel for the wedding with a holiday and our ideal date became November 28, 2020 (the Saturday following Thanksgiving).

Of course, COVID came and wiped out those plans and I had written the above blurb before we even really had knowledge that the pandemic was spreading and way before any lock downs. I'm leaving it here for posterity because we really loved our initial wedding date/timing. 

In July/August 2020, when COVID was starting to ramp up again after a temporary lull earlier in the summer, we made the decision to postpone to May 23, 2021. This was less ideal for a number of reasons, and we didn't come to the decision lightly. So many things were still unknown about the longevity of the pandemic at the time, but we knew that this would be the only postponement we would be willing to do. We wanted to give some time for the pandemic to "lighten up"/vaccines to be distributed (haha, little did we know last year) and also do our best to retain most of our already booked vendors. We definitely didn't want to dip into the summer (June/July/August are just too hot here for my taste), so May was the latest we'd be willing to delay.

My husband and I decided that if we were going to postpone, we were willing to do that once only. (If government/health restrictions kept us from the postponed date, we would cancel.) So, to give us the best chance and with keeping our own priorities in mind, we set May 2021 as the latest we would be willing to postpone before canceling altogether as we wanted to get on with our lives. If it couldn't happen in May, we would concede that we wouldn't hold a large wedding-type event as we didn't want to continually put our lives on hold for this. 

Wedding/bridal expos
I don't generally do well in situations when people are trying to "sell" you something and for most of these types of expos, it was essentially photographers and other vendors trying to sell...themselves. I didn't have a ton of preferences or expectations going in, but mostly I just felt awkward at these things - more than I anticipated. I personally prefer to just take cards and do online research later, but supposedly the "great thing" about these events is that you have a chance to get discounts or win free stuff from the vendors.

I attended a free bridal expo at Koolau Ballrooms with my parents as my husband was on a work trip. In retrospect, this one was not bad because it focused on the stuff you need after you select the venue (in this case assuming you picked Koolau already). They had food to sample and also offered a short tour in small groups about 1.5 hours in. I personally didn't like the "I'm the bride" "I'm the groom" "I'm the party" nicknames but that's just because I don't like people outwardly knowing information about me - I do realize how it's more helpful for the vendors to be able to know who to direct their pitch to.

We attended the Wedding Expo in October 2019 with my MOH and her friend at the Hawaii Convention Center. If you're in Hawaii and you see this one come up - skip it. This one was $8-10 and had way less vendors than I anticipated. There was even this "Celebrate Your Sexy" boudoir photography company that contacts you later to tell you you won a "deluxe package" but according to most Yelp reviews, this is just a way to rope you into taking photos and then having to pay minimum $500 if you want any copies of them. If you get a call, text or email from them - please be wary!
The expo that we were most anticipating was the Hawaii Bridal Expo 2020 at the Blaisdell Center. Entry was about $12.50/person. This had a bit more vendors than the Convention Center but still not as full and as exciting as I was hoping. We were primarily looking for photographer alternatives at this one and there were some good options for that. But overall, we were definitely underwhelmed.
Lastly, we opted to go to the spring version of the free expo at Koolau Ballrooms in March 2020. I felt a bit iffy about going since we had already secured our venue at a different location, but our DoC who would be attending as a vendor told me it would be okay since vendors have to pay to be there and we were still looking for vendors (specifically photobooth).

Venue [Royal Hawaiian Golf Club, previously known as Luanna Hills]
We started visiting venues in early September 2019 (with a Fall 2020 date in mind). 
1. Sunset Ranch on the North Shore which was incredibly highly rated on wedding websites and featured amazing photos. Neither of us had ever been to this site before but were enticed by the use of the entire venue for the day and the beautiful landscape + multiple options within the ranch. It has a meaningful history and we had a great tour with the wedding coordinator. Downsides to this venue were the requirements for a transportation service due to limited parking on site as well as 0 air conditioning anywhere on the venue including all the prep rooms and bridal suite. Even in November, Hawaii can still be quite hot and AC for at least the reception was high on my list since I get extremely uncomfortable when I'm sweaty.
2. Koolau Ballrooms in Kaneohe initially seemed like a front runner for us. It has an amazing landscape for an outdoor ceremony but a totally acceptable indoor space which was a great option in case of rain. The indoor ballroom for the reception has full glass walls which mean you can enjoy the scenery safe from rain or intense sun and they also do a ton of weddings and offer great complete packages. The downside for this one was that it didn't feel private at all - we even had our site visit through someone's ongoing wedding reception and there will likely be other parties occurring at the same time due to its popularity. Plus I had my high school prom here so the ballrooms in this space remind me of that.

3. Kualoa Ranch is the site of many past and recent film & TV projects like Jurassic Park and Jumanji just to name a few! For this venue, we were specifically looking at their Molii Gardens & Paliku Gardens sites. Molii Gardens ended up having the privacy angle we were looking for but was completely outdoors. Paliku Gardens (also 100% outdoors) offered endless customization options and a spectacular view (an understatement tbh) but the configuration wasn't ideal for us.

4. Halekulani in Waikiki was the first hotel we visited based on the photos from wedding websites. In person, this seemed less suited to our tastes by a lot. The coordinator was very knowledgeable and it seemed like they had a lot of structure to their weddings so there wasn't a lot of fuss. The biggest minus for this one was the ceremony space was just in the middle of the hotel on a lawn where guests and random people would constantly be walking by to get to their rooms or the beach.

5. Hale Koa is another hotel in Waikiki that we had booked to visit on the same day at Halekulani. This one was almost even less suited to us than the previous but at least we already knew what to expect a little. These hotel venues are pretty traditional and a nice perk is a place to stay overnight and getting ready in a hotel room (sometimes included in the package). Again, we didn't really like the abundance of non-wedding related guests that could be privy to our event.
6. Royal Hawaiian Golf Club in Kaneohe is a bit similar to Koolau Ballrooms but seems like it is much less touted or well known. We visited this one on the same day as the hotels and were almost instantly in 100% agreement without even talking to each other that this seemed like the right fit for us. The wedding coordinator was quite busy but the site spoke for itself and we were excited to learn it would be possible to use most if not all of the venue with weddings always taking precedent. There is a beautiful outdoor ceremony space with two options and a glass wall ballroom that looks out to a fantastic view. These are all in close proximity to each other so guests don't have to navigate too far from the ceremony to cocktail hour and then reception.

In the end, we ended up seeing 2 outdoor ranch style venues, 2 golf course/club type venues and 2 hotels. We thought this was a relatively well rounded sample of the types of venues that are most prevalent in HI for what we were interested in. We had considered private estates for a bit, but due to our guest count (150+), most were better suited to parties of 50 or less.

Menu [RHGC provided]
Our venue did now allow outside food to be brought in with the exception of cake. This, in a way, made it a lot easier for us as we didn't have to get a separate food vendor. A tasting for 2 (bride and groom) was included as part of our contract and we could add additional people to the tasting for an additional cost.

We had initially planned (and were excited to do) a buffet for lunch with lots of different options. Due to COVID restrictions, we were lucky to have an eating option at the venue at all, but obviously buffet was out of the question. Our only choice was for a plated lunch and we offered our guests 3 different main dish choices (beef, pork or fish). And because of the pandemic, we were unable to do a tasting at all. 

Colors/theme [Lavender & mint]
This is something I wanted to nail down pretty early in the process because I thought it would kind of help shape the theme, flowers, favors/centerpieces, invitations, etc. I've always known I wanted to have a softer color palate for wedding colors, and my husband was very receptive to this as well. We tossed a bunch of ideas around and ended up going to a home improvement store and looking at different paint swatch combinations. Unexpectedly, we landed on lavender and mint!

For an overall theme, I had a bit of trouble explaining what I was imagining, especially to our vendors. Eventually I kind of settled on "soft romantic" but also not too fussy. We wanted to let our venue shine and be its own decoration without a lot of added extras.

Day of Coordinator [A Perfect Day]
Apparently having a Day of Coordinator (DoC) is pretty common these days. I figured either I or someone in my family would be able to handle a lot of these responsibilities, but after feeling pretty overwhelmed during the planning process and having not really intimately participated in a wedding in the past (like as a MOH or bridesmaid or sibling), I eventually gave in and acknowledged that it would be great to get some help.

Husband and I decided to do a consultation with Kelly, the planner that had recommended our venue to us through her free services. She clearly seemed to be able to understand what we were looking for and found us something we hadn't been able find ourselves with our own research. Her wedding planning and DoC services are through her "A Perfect Day" company. Her clients actually have "full access" to her wedding expertise from the moment the contract is signed (even for just DoC services) including getting recommendations from her and just bouncing off ideas and questions. She has a minimum number of meetings/hours spent with each client versus a maximum.
Once we hired her, she sent us a bunch of forms to fill out to help her/her team get to know what we wanted for our wedding and what our expectations were. There were a bunch of things on there that I definitely hadn't thought about.

Especially with the postponement, Kelly was super useful and she guided us through a lot of the process. Without going into all of the details, we really needed her help in the 2-3 months preceding the wedding when we almost had to find a new venue and I'm so glad we kept her on retainer. There's a lot of details even for a simple event that she helped us think through and plan, and we felt confident that no matter what happened during the wedding, that she'd be able to handle it.

Photographer and Videographer [Derek Wong Photography & Small Hour Films]
There are SO MANY options for wedding photography and videography. SO MANY. My recommendation would be to start on Instagram, especially with hashtags with your specific location + wedding or wedding photography/er (ex. "#hawaiiwedding"). Derek Wong Photography caught my eye based on a friend of a friend's wedding post for themselves. I really fell in love with his photography style and we scheduled a consultation with him quickly, about a year out from our initial date. He's a bit on the expensive side, so although we liked him a lot, I felt like I needed to do a little more research to figure out if there might be a comparable cheaper option. 

3 months and another wedding expo later, I still liked Derek the best and we booked him + his recommended videographer, Small Hour Films, in January 2020. When we had first done the consult with Derek, he had clear availability for our date, but since we waited for a bit, he would only be on site for the first 5 hours but promised us his associate photographer would have no issues taking care of the last hour on their own. Since I mostly wanted him for the portraits, this was okay with me, but definitely made me sad that I couldn't commit earlier!

With our postponed date and smaller event, Derek was actually able to be there for the complete time, but since our event was going to be much shorter, he offered us 4 hours of wedding photography and then a 2 hour engagement photoshoot (basically splitting our original 6 hours into two sessions) which we happily accepted since we love his photography/style. It meant we wouldn't really have any professional photos from the sit-down lunch portion, but I think the engagement photos are much more worthwhile to me. We were able to get a small sample from the engagement session, so here's a sneak peek! (I'm planning to do a separate blog post when I get the full set from Derek.)

(c) Derek Wong Photography

We unfortunately decided to forgo SHF's videography services with the smaller event. It was nothing to do with them personally, but we felt that with our pared down event, the video just wouldn't be what we wanted it to be. SHF was very professional about it and we even got half of our deposit back which I thought was very generous. 

Flowers [Always Flowers 808 Halu Flowers]
We first met with a pretty well known wedding florist after attending a couple wedding expos. The quote wasn't crazy high, but we just didn't feel like committing just yet. We let a couple months go by and were almost ready to resume contact and sign an agreement, when we decided to hire our DoC who gave us a different recommendation based on what we were looking for. We scheduled a consultation with him instead and liked him a lot + he seemed to have worked very well with our DoC in the past. We booked with Todd/Always Flowers 808 in February 2020 for brides bouquet, MOH bouquet, 7x boutonnieres, arch flowers, wedding sign flowers and aisle flowers.

Unfortunately, Todd was unavailable for our rescheduled date, so we weren't able to use his services for our 2021 wedding. He did allow us to use the deposit we had put down on other floral needs with no time limit instead. We ended up doing 3 different arrangements - one for my mom's birthday, one for my MIL's birthday and one for my grandma's birthday, and we were very happy with all of them!

Our DoC then recommended Halu Flowers as an option since we needed to start from scratch. Takako was very receptive to our ideas and we worked out a quote over email fairly easily. In April 2021, I saw that my old coworker had also used Halu Flowers for her own wedding and loved the arrangement, so I knew this was a great choice!

Hair and Make up [Face Art Beauty]
Based on a recommendation for our DoC, I sought out Face Art Beauty. Their prices were a little high based on what I was expecting but technically within the budget. When I asked our DoC for another rec to compare them, I did still like FAB based on their published photos and work. After a phone consultation, I decided to book a trial with FAB before doing a full contract. I know that not always how it's typically done but since I had never had my make up done professionally before, I thought it would be important to see if I even liked it and how I would feel overall about the process. The trial wasn't cheap either so I was taking a little bit of a gamble scheduling the trial and just praying that they wouldn't be booked for my event date by the time I made a decision.

In any case, I think it went really well and I was quite happy with the service I received in terms of the product and the personnel! It took about 2.5 hours to get it just right during the trial, but the stylist was very patient and easy to talk to and work with. I ended up doing a dress re-try on directly after and a short "photoshoot" with my husband after as well to see how the hair/make up would look in "professional" photos.

DJ/Music [DIY]
Lots of the wedding expos we went to had DJs. As heinous as this is, I've never really been a "music person". By which I mean, I, of course, enjoy music but don't really have good taste and just kind of enjoy most music in general. Since we were planning on a daytime wedding and didn't particularly want a huge dance party, we decided against getting a DJ and instead opted to curate our own playlists, rent sound equipment from the venue and ask some family members to moderate the device used to play the music. 

This ended up being okay because with COVID restrictions, we definitely didn't want to have everyone dancing anyway. 

Wedding dress [Casablanca Bridal & Formals, brand: Pronovias]
I decided to do an entirely separate post for my wedding dress shopping since I ended up trying so many! The short version is that I went to 4 bridal boutiques on Oahu (3 of them 2x) and tried on over 45 dresses. Check out my other post if you're interested in more photos and to read more specifically about my experience. I ended up getting my dress from Casablanca Bridal & Formals.

I ordered it in December 2019 and it arrived in store (in my size) in July 2020. By then, we knew we were rescheduling so I went for my first fitting in April 2021. Casablanca stores the dresses for you for free which worked out really well since we had postponed.

Groom's attire [Black Tie Affair]

We were recommended Black Tie Affair by our DoC. We had initially intending on getting all of the groomsmen/bridesmen's suits from here, but with the downsizing, only my husband really needed a suit. Mike from BTA was very knowledgeable and was able to provide a lot of information when we went for a consult in March 2021 and picked out a business-style suit (something more simple compared to a tux). We scheduled the suit fitting in early May 2021 once we figured out what shoes he'd wear. 

Wedding bands [Laurie Fleming Jewellery]
I actually ended up deciding on a wedding band while looking for an alternate engagement ring! I knew I wanted something slim/petite but with a little bit of character that I'd be able to wear with or without an engagement ring. The first one I picked out - Laurie Fleming's Aika Ring in white gold, fit the bill very nicely. I posted more about it here. Once I ordered my LF Daphne Ring, I knew I would want to pair it with a LF Beacen Ring and that's the stack I wear most often now (but also love the Jasmine Ring as a second alternative). 

For my husband's wedding ring, I have to admit, we just went to WalMart. He wasn't really sure of what he wanted exactly and we wanted to just start with something cheap. It turns out that he doesn't really enjoy wearing jewelry/rings, so it's just as well that it's not something expensive.

Budget
I'm not going to be very comfortable discussing specific wedding budget here, but I just wanted to vent about a few things. I feel like there's a lot of social media posts about either the absolute most extravagant weddings ($100k+) or people bragging about the extreme frugalness of their weddings (i.e. "I only spent $20 at Trader Joe's and IT WAS AMAZING. I don't know why anyone has to spend any more than that!!") and almost nothing in between. Looking back, ofc this makes sense. "Average" weddings with "average" budgets are not novel in any way and likely don't garner any particular interest. But time and time again, I felt like anytime anyone publicly mentioned a budget higher than $1000, they were immediately met with judgement! This made me feel pretty bad initially about what we were planning.

(This is just a screenshot of one of my failed pinterest boards)

I obviously agree with the sentiment that all that matters is the bridge & groom and their love and connection to each other & the $ amount spent on the wedding should be irrelevant. I also don't generally like spending a lot of money on what is essentially a party for myself. But at the same time, I wanted us to be able to enjoy the wedding and not be pinching pennies if we could afford to have what we want.
I eventually convinced myself that the difference between myself and the $20 Trader Joe potluck weddings was at minimum: 1. We planned to get married in Hawaii (where we grew up and currently live) at a venue that wasn't our backyard/would cost money. Just based on our location, I think that venues are already a bit on the higher end because of its resort status and highly sought after wedding destination spot for tourists, elopers and locals alike. 2. Local weddings traditionally have a lot of family members. Many of our relatives still live on island and/or are willing to fly over to HI. I'm not just talking our generation's cousins. I'm talking our parents (both sides) first cousins, their spouses, their children and spouses and then even sometimes second cousins and grandparent's families as well. With just the determined "must invite" family members alone we were at 120 people MINIMUM and that didn't even branch out as far as I mentioned above and didn't include any non-family members like members of the wedding party and our close friends! (You might be thinking that we don't need to invite these people but you must be joking if you thought that we hadn't considered that and had it vetoed.)
This probably just sounds like a ton of excuses to have a multi-thousand dollar wedding, and it is. But what is comes down to is that we couldn't figure out how to plan for a "once in a lifetime" event like this and be happy with it without spending money on it. We didn't want it to seem like a DIY birthday party and we wanted to have a good time with also our guests having a great time. That's fine for many people but just isn't our style/taste.
I just needed this here to remind myself that what we chose is what was right for us and for our means and budget. And I wanted to put this out there for anyone else having doubts as well. It seems obvious, but it took me a while to come around to this place.

We ended up downsizing a LOT due to COVID anyway, but our original guest list of approx 150 didnt even include a lot of the family we'd typically invite!

Wedding Party
My husband has 4 childhood friends who he immediately knew he wanted as his groomsmen. Tbh I don't have a group of really close girlfriends, but with a bridal party of 4 in mind, I knew I wanted my bestie coworker and my 3 long time guy friends to stand by me. I think I would have been okay having an uneven wedding party or even no wedding party if we had decided to go that route, but somehow it kind of worked out.
I personally expected very little of my MOH & bridesmen - no bridal shower or bachelorette party. We would be paying for the clothes and anything else specifically required for the wedding. Just come for the rehearsal & show up on the day of, be in a few pictures and help us celebrate! Since my MOH was the only girl in the wedding party, I told her to pick whatever dress she wanted (and would reimburse up to $X amount). She still ran it past me and I gave my opinion but my intention was for it to not just be one of those get it and wear it only once type of dresses. She ended up choosing the Gaia Slip Dress from Rat & Boa, ordered during a sale period (in February 2020). I had never even heard of the brand before myself, but she was long looking for an excuse to get something, so I was happy to facilitate it. Shoes were completely up to her and we would sponsor the Hair and Make up on day of.
For the guys, I let my husband take the lead with how all men in the wedding party would look. We wanted something a little bit different for the brides and grooms side, but nothing super outrageous.
Due to the postponement, we didn't end up really having a wedding party at all. The groomsmen were majority coming from out of state/country and due to pandemic situation, it wouldn't be reasonable for them to attend. My friends were majority on island, but I just thought it would be simpler and more enjoyable for my guy friends to just attend as guests. I still wanted my MOH to get ready with me and take pictures, but no speeches or anything else. 

Cake
We didn't have a super specific vision for our cake, so I was happy to take a simple recommendation from our DoC. Based on us wanting something pretty basic, Kelly recommended WeHeartCake Company. Just before everything shut down for COVID-19, we did a private cake tasting at the bakery. From their flavors list, we elected to try chocolate, vanilla and lemon cake with chocolate, vanilla, espresso and cookies & cream frosting.

We didn't end up fully reserving the cake as we had a break in communication with WeHeartCake (likely at least partially due to the pandemic just starting to get serious and many non-essential businesses having to shut down), which was almost just as well because we postponed and almost cancelled anyway. 

When we finally got around to understanding the reality of what our May 23, 2021 event would look like, we decided to reach out one more time to WeHeartCake in April 2021, who by then it seemed was operating almost normally again. (Although they were still difficult to reach by email and IG DM worked much better.) They were no longer doing wedding cakes OR delivery, but we loved the look of their love letter cakes and was willing to pick it up the day before, refrigerate overnight and bring to the venue ourselves. 

Officiant

We had intended for my church's minister to officiate at our wedding and had ensured that he would be available for our Nov 28, 2020 date. Our postponed date, May 23, 2021 was unfortunately a Sunday and obviously my minister would be doing actual church service for the congregation lol. Although this was a bummer, it ultimately didn't really matter. He had performed our actual legal ceremony back in November 2019. Since we were mostly going through the motions in May 2021 and wanted to limit the number of people at the event, we decided to forgo an officiant at all.

Save the dates & Invitations [Minted]
I didn't know where in the world to start for this because I had no idea what was practical, what a reasonable price was, whether online or in store would be better, or when we should start sending them out. After getting a lot of targeted wedding website ads, I found an invitation that I thought was reasonable from Minted - the All in One. Because we were anticipated doing the invites from Minted, it seemed to make sense for the entire set to be from them as well.

We ended up doing both Minted Save the dates and Unsave the date postcards. We had optimistically sent out the Save the dates for the Nov 28, 2020 date in early June 2020 to our whole guest list (around 150ish people). We communicated the postponed date just via text (through family), so we didn't send a second card for that. 

In February 2021, we realistically knew that we wouldn't be able to safely have the original 150+ guest wedding we had planned. As a result, we sent out "unsave the date" cards to most of the guests. The text on the back read something like 

"Unfortunately, due to COVID concerns and local restrictions, we will NOT be holding our wedding as (re)scheduled on May 23, 2021. We are sad that we won't be able to celebrate with you but are looking forward to continue to explore married life together." 

For the close family members that would still attend the abbreviated/much smaller event we held, we ended up putting together a more formal invitation than the Minted All-in-One (which was the budget option we had liked when there were many more people) with a matching RSVP card. I also created a simple instruction card for the RSVP and a longer explanation of the lunch menu options on a card that I just printed out myself and stuck in there. 

With the signature cardstock, the envelope weighed 1.1oz which meant it needed a 2oz ($0.75) stamp to mail (compared to the $0.55 Forever stamps). 

Favors & Centerpieces
My mom took complete ownership of the favors with us just supplying her with simple ideas. I love li hing mui so my mind first went to seed jars. Big ones for the centerpieces with succulents and fairy lights and candy/something edible in the small ones. She got small jars for the favors that she ordered way in advance (obviously before we reduced the guest list) as well as the larger jars for centerpieces back in 2019/early 2020 pre-pandemic. 

For the candy favors, we chose li hing sour watermelon candy, li hing sour patch kids, holland mints, easter/egg themed peanut butter m&ms (for a softer palette than the classic and not too much after easter lol), nerds gummy clusters and mini chewy sweettarts. 

Seating chart, Table numbers and Name/placecards
My mom also took the lead for creating these after input from us. I really loved the look of the trendy acrylic seating charts and with our reduced guest list, it seemed more reasonable. The name cards were more necessary for COVID reasons (for the plated lunch to ensure the right food went to the right guest). I didn't easily have access to photoshop when I was trying to quickly plan these, so I did some VERY rough mock ups in powerpoint to give my mom and idea of what I was looking for. 

Went really basic with the brush lettering font lol.  

The postponement & pandemic
It is hopefully highly unlikely that anyone will need postponement advice due to a worldwide pandemic, but I just wanted to include a short section here because it was a huge headache for me to have to reschedule everything and wait an additional 6 months to get everything over with. I mentioned it throughout the other sections above as well but I just wanted to dedicate something to this specific topic in general. 

I fully acknowledge that that complaint about having to postpone comes from a huge position of privilege and I'm very lucky this was one of the only major ways the pandemic affected my life. On a scale of things (vs. unemployment, being immuno-compromised, having friends and family get diagnosed and requiring treatment, etc), I know having to replan a big giant unnecessary love party isn't something that is likely going to garner any sympathy from other people. That being said, I would point out that wedding/event vendors were also hit quite hard during the pandemic since they often get business from large gatherings of people that the government was expressly prohibiting. We hadn't paid for all of our vendors in full by the time that we had to postpone, but I know I wanted to support our local vendors the best that we could while keeping the safety and health of our guests and ofc any employees as the top priority and continuing with our event the best we could.
We had been naively optimistic from March through most of June 2020, thinking that our late, late November 2020 wedding could possibly happen. I also didn't want to start bothering vendors too early, knowing that couples with wedding during that actual time would be scrambling to coordinate their own events which I felt took higher priority over mine in autumn, especially when we had no idea what would happen months from then. It wasn't until the COVID case numbers were rising again in mid-July 2020 that I finally got my ass in gear to start emailing each vendor to understand their current policies a bit more. Here is a portion of the email I sent to the vendors we had already booked once we knew the availability from our top priority vendors we knew we wanted to keep at all costs:

We're trying to figure out our possible options for postponing and wanted to get a bit more information about [vendor's business name]'s policies with regards to:

 A. postponing the event,
 B. cancelling the event (whether due to government-restrictions or personal choice), and
 C. continuing with the Nov 28 event
And
 What are the timeline limitations for making these decisions?
 If postponing is possible, is it possible to do a soft hold on any of the following dates if [vendor's business name] is available? [Apr 3 or May 23, 2021]

The health and safety of those in attendance (both guests and vendors) are our highest priority.  While we would ideally be able to hold our scheduled event, with the current number of cases and restrictions on travel, we realize that this may not be realistic. We acknowledge that this is a fluid situation and it's impossible to know what the pandemic and government restrictions will be in November, but any insight you can provide at the present would be helpful in our decision-making process.

As mentioned in the setting the date section, we had discussed between ourselves that that latest we were willing to postpone to was May 2021 and had to make some hard decisions based on vendor availability and other personal factors with that restriction.

In February 2021, we had a slightly more realistic idea of what the world might look like in May 2021 (although obviously nothing for sure) and cautiously went ahead with planning to gather family and wedding party (who were on island) primarily for the purpose of taking photos/portraits with the understanding that might not even be possible even outdoors. But the photos was something I really wanted. Since husband and I are already legally married, the "wedding" part didn't really matter to me, but I was really hoping to have some really nice photos in my dress and with our families to hopefully look back on fondly years later. 

After a lot of flux with local regulations and vaccine roll out, in late April 2021, we had fully flushed out a plan with our DoC that included a "mock" ceremony (no officiant and mostly for show/just for photos), and the venue would allow us to have lunch in the ballroom with our pared down guestlist of approximately 50 (the same people who would be in the family photos). There would not be any program at the reception (no first dance, no father-daughter dance, no speeches or toasts or games). Two-thirds of the guests were "uninvited", some of the vendors were released (like the videographer bc we felt it was unnecessary since we weren't even going to have a real ceremony anyway), and the food options weren't exactly as we imagined, but we were fortunate to keep most of what we wanted. 

Tips

• Before you start contacting vendors or going to expos, consider creating an email address for your wedding planning. It doesn't have to be a fancy one, but I got so many "spam" type emails from vendors after going to the expos and I just thought it was better when I could have a separate mailbox for them. It's best if it's short or easy to spell because you'll have to write/enter/spell it out for people at various parts of the process.
• Keep a calendar for when all of your vendor payments are due!
• If you're having a traditional wedding with a set schedule, I would highly recommend a wedding coordinator, at least for day of. And believe me, I was very skeptical at first. Our DoC also does a lot of stuff before the actual event including consultations or just being a sounding board, and she was worth every penny. There's a lot of details that she really helped us think through even though we sacked a lot of the reception. 

Name change
Since we actually got legally married in November 2019, I started the name change process in December 2019 when we got back from our Japan trip. The woman who processed our marriage license recommended social security card first, then drivers license followed by work ID cards and then passport. She also recommended ordering many multiples of the marriage certificate for this process since after the first copy (which is $12.50) they're just $4 additional after that in Hawaii. I actually ended up doing my drivers license and social security card on the same day based on when I could get an appointment and when I had requested leave from work. It managed to be okay since I'm just asking for a "duplicate" license (had to pay $6) and then the lady at the social security office didn't even ask for my ID when processing my name change there ($0). Basically I mostly needed just my marriage certificate at both places as supporting documentation for the name change because I had a original document that was still valid otherwise. Passport was the most painful because it costs $110 and is processed through USPS mail (for those who already have a US passport processed after 16 yo) and takes forever, plus I had to wait for my marriage certificate copies to come in before I could mail it.
Plane tickets I had reserved under my maiden name had to be changed to my married name as well. Don't forget credit cards too.

Honestly, I do think changing your name is a big pain in the ass, but it's definitely doable if you're motivated to do it. If I had changed my name unwillingly, I probably would have complained a lot more throughout the process. 

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This is all kind of just a hodge podge of information and unfortunately, I don't yet have pictures to provide of the actual products from the wedding day since I'm posting this with 1 week to go before the wedding! Those photos may take a little while to get back and weren't quite the purpose of this post anyway since I wanted to focus on what we went through for planning (although I realize it's a little anti-climatic without them).

Plus, I think I want to do a separate post for the actual wedding event (when I get the professional photos back) anyway. This post is mainly to remind myself what a headache wedding planning is and how much I dislike it, haha. There's honestly so many more details that I probably haven't written down but we'll see if it was worth it and what mattered in the end and what didn't!