Tikis in Paradise: Hali'maile General Store Rehearsal Dinner

Our day was just getting started once we got our nails done. After our fun Wahine Party we headed back to our cottage at Mama's Fish House to get ready for the rehearsal dinner. We got ourselves all prettied-up, got gifts together for everyone and found that almost everyone was wearing orange in their outfits without it being planned. It looked pretty fabulous for pictures!

Getting dolled up.

Presents for our parents and Sara.

Tikis in Paradise: Wahine Party

The Wahine party was just for the ladies. No boys allowed as Nicki so awesomly put on the invitations. A day of lunch and getting our nails done before the wedding the next day.

We all meet-up in Kahului at Da Kitchen, a locals' favorite, for some Hawaiian grinds. Their menu is pretty extensive and had something for everyone on it. A few who'd never had musubi before were intrigued by it and I encouraged them to give it a try. Everyone who did, loved it. Especially, Mykie!

Love the bracelets in our wedding colors given to me by Honey at my first bridal shower.

Tikis in Paradise: Cock n Hen Party

We went on our Cock n Hen party with all of our friends that came to the wedding the Thursday night before the wedding. We booked tickets on the Pride of Maui for their sunset dinner cruise. We hit the water on boat for a few hours of live music, open bar and an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Lise, Nicki, Jon, Traci, Drew, Kimmy, Matt, Heather and Lars. 

Due to Hurricane Daniel, the weather on Maui started to take a turn on Thursday. It became more windy resulting in choppier water. But, that didn't stop us from enjoying out time at sea. Hey, you never know what's going to happen when you are on a tropical island.

Tikis in Paradise: Welcome Hukilau Part 'Ekolu

Ok, we were just joking around when we said that the party got really crazy after the parents left. We got all that craziness out in our 20s and early 30s. Well, unless you call getting crazy playing with sparklers. We aren't talking about the sucky sparklers they have on the west coast either. We are talking about the old-school metal sparklers that leave tracers. These sparklers were the real deal!

Since our Welcome Hukilau was on the 4th of July, we put together cute little sparkler packets for all our our guests. Yes, we really did think of everything. We used these great templates that I downloaded from Twig & Thistle. Used the straw tags, too. Didn't end up using the matchbox covers because Mama's Fish House had their own cute matches and it saved me a little time. We gave each of our guests a sparkler packet and everyone had a ton of fun with them.

Loved finding REAL sparklers to use for these. 

Tikis in Paradise: Welcome Hukilau Part 'Elua

After everyone was feed and happy, we decided to take them over to the beach to show them where we would be getting married on Saturday. Just as we were rounding everyone up, we saw a rainbow stretch across the sky. It was the first of many rainbows that we would see during our wedding week; a sign of good blessings on our marriage.

There's a reason they call it the rainbow state. 

Tikis in Paradise: Welcome Hukilau

After our day at Baldwin Beach, we invited everyone to join us for a Welcome Hukilau. This hukilau was packed full of all kinds of excitement from dinner, to giving out of town bags, to crazy fun with sparklers to celebrate the 4th of July to showing everyone the wedding ceremony location to celebrating a birthday. Yes, so much in one night!

Because of that, we'll be splitting this night up into two posts. There's just so many pictures to share! Of course, we won't be posting all of them. You will just have to make sure to come to our Portland celebration to see all of the pictures.

Nicki, Mykie and I left the beach early to pick up some trays of food from Da Kitchen and get everything set up. We though it'd make things a lot easier for everyone to have the main food catered and only have to add a couple smaller things ourselves. Plus, Da Kitchen has great local grinds and their catering is really affordable. We highly recommend them when you are on the islands.

We served kalua pork, chow fun noodles, a salad of organic spring mix, tropical fruits and papaya poppy seed dressing, taro and Hawaiian sweet bread rolls, tropical fruits and some of our favorite local snacks like Hurricane Popcorn. Everyone seemed to enjoy the food and was ready to big in and eat after a long day at the beach. We also set up a self-serve bar of local liquors like coconut vodka and tropical fruit juices.

Cutting up papaya for the salad. 

Tikis in Paradise: A Day at Baldwin Beach

On the 4th of July, we kicked off the first day of a full wedding week of activities! It was perfect starting it with a holiday bang. We headed to Baldwin beach for the day and invited everyone to join us before the Welcome Hukilau that night.

Now we picked Baldwin beach because of it's location, the safe lagoon they had that was great for keiki (Hawaiian for children) to swim and its big white sand beach with plenty of room around the lagoon. Or at least it had been that way for years and had been that way the last time we were there in January. Not so much that way when we showed up that day.

None of these trees were on the beach before. 

Tikis In Paradise: The One Where We Get Our Marriage License

Reality really hits that you are getting married when you go off to get your marriage licence. We started off the day with our morning tradition of breakfast on the lanai before getting ready to head to Kihei for our appointment. How much do you love my tiki pajamas that our friend, Honey, gave to me for my birthday? They are perfect for having breakfast out on the lanai in Hawaii.

Mahalo Honey for the tiki pjs!

When we got to our marriage license appointment we realized we weren't the only ones scheduled for the 10:30 time slot. What they don't tell you when you make your appointment is that many other couples are scheduled at the same time and it's really first come, first serve. If we had known this, we would have come earlier instead of waiting for what we thought was our specific appointment time. Now that you know, get there early or be prepared to wait.

Tikis in Paradise: No Signal

Wow! Everything sort of got away from us on the trip and with blogging. Once the wedding week activities got started there just wasn't time to focus on anything else. Then once everything was over and we got to Hana we thought we'd have some time to blog, but the Internets were down at where we were staying. There just wasn't any where we could get a signal. Not even on our phones. Don't fret; we will still be blogging about all of our trip, the wedding, all the wedding details and the rest of our DIY projects. Not to mention wedding pictures! There will be tons more jam packed action coming your way in the next few weeks! Now let's get back to our time on the tropical island of Maui...

The day before everyone arrived was BUSY. Well, the early morning wasn't. I had some time to blog while Drew slept. When he woke up he made us some breakfast of mango sausage, banana bread made by Mama's Fish House, tropical fruit and Maui coffee. Drew enjoyed eating it out on the lanai while reading the Maui paper that was left at our door.

Loved the hibiscus on the Maui newspaper waiting for us in the morning. 

Tikis in Paradise: Aloha from Paradise

Aloha! We are doing well and having a blast in paradise! Everyone has been joining us the last couple days on Maui and we officially kicked off the wedding week on the 4th of July with a welcome party. It's been great seeing all of our hard work finally start to come together.

Of course, now we are really busy with all things wedding. But, we promise to post as we can and continue to give you updates on our trip and wedding. Especially since our amazing wedding photographer, Sara Sanger, is already sending us links to our pictures! So excited to already be getting to see some of those. A little sneak peak for all of you from our trip to Baldwin beach yesterday:

Almost everyone joined us for a day at Baldwin Beach. 

Tikis in Paradise: Settling into Paradise

Once we got our luggage and rental car we headed to the Inn at Mama's Fish House for the first 10 days of our trip. We thought it'd be easiest to stay at the same place we were getting married at and the grounds are absolutely gorgeous. Not to mention that the food is perfect.

We checked into the garden studio which is a quaint little cottage with a lanai and a hop, skip and a jump to the beach. The cottage is so sweet with all of it's old Hawaii  touches. I knew instantly I was going to enjoy our time here. Let me take you for a little tour:

Beautiful fresh tropical flowers in our cottage. 

Tikis in Paradise: Hello Maui!

We have safety arrived on Maui. We are so happy to be here and to be in paradise for 15 days. We are so excited to see how everything unfolds and what adventures await us while we are here. This island is simply heaven.

Yesterday was trying for sure. Have you tried traveling for a wedding before? I'm not talking about traveling to have a destination wedding. I'm talking about taking all of your wedding items with you while traveling to have a destination wedding. It's not easy.

First trying to get everything to fit in our bags was insane. No matter what I did or what I took out I just couldn't get them under 50 lbs. Thankfully, Hawaiian Airlines has a 50 lb weight limit instead of only 40 or we would have been screwed. In the end, I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best that the weight on our bags would be 50 lbs or under when we got to the airport. Because things just happen to get lighter all on their own while sitting in suitcases. Don't they? Ok, maybe not.

Were our bags under the 50 lb limit? No, they weren't. One weighed in at 50.5 lbs and the other at 52 lbs. Thankfully the woman at the counter let it slide and didn't charge us the additional fee. We were so grateful for that! I could have kissed her! Our bags will be much lighter on the return trip once we use up all of the wedding items and give out all of our gifts. Both Drew and I will be very happy about that.

Maui Wedding Planning Trip: Our Last Day on Maui

Sadly, our Maui Wedding Planning Trip had to come to an end. And we did return to Portland. Even though we didn't want to. We would have happily stayed and lived as beach combers, instead.

For our last breakfast we headed to Five Palms. It was right on the beach and perfect for our last morning together on Maui. They also had lovely mango mimosas. We loved it all so much, we've already decided to go there again for the last morning of our wedding trip. Thanks Sarah for this recommendation, too.

Having breakfast at Five Palms. 

The best Hawaiian sweet bread french toast I had on the island!

Maui Wedding Planning Trip: The Most Perfect Day on Maui

Now we absolutely loved our whale encounter, but surprisingly it wasn't our most perfect day on Maui. We also loved our visit to our venue and all the tastings we got to do that day. But, that wasn't our most perfect day either since it was a lot of wedding business. Our most perfect day was our last full day on Maui. Our only full day in Kihei.

We got up bright and early to attend an owner's meeting at our condo. We got 1000 free points for doing it, so yeah. It's kind of nice getting up so early when you don't have to go to work since you can get so much done. Do you know what I mean? Plus, we got to see the ocean so calm in the early morning light.

Another view from our room.

After our meeting we headed to Kihei Cafe. Another recommendation from my friend, Sarah. Drew got the Local Moco. It's a ridiculously huge meal, but you have to get it at least once when you are on Maui. I had Hawaiian sweet bread french toast for the second day in a row. That stuff is seriously addicting!

Maui Wedding Planning Trip: Time in Kihei

Are you ready for more of our exciting Maui Wedding Planning trip? We thought you were! Now some of the information at the beginning of this post may not seem as exciting as some of our other posts, but it's information you will be happy to have next time you are on Maui. But, just you wait! The middle has all kinds of juicy tidbits. Now sit back and enjoy another exciting installment of our Maui Wedding Planning Trip! Kihei style!

After our time in Iao Valley we headed to Kihei for the next couple days. Our first stop was to hit 808 Deli. We originally were going to go somewhere else, but I wanted to get a sandwich and I am so happy that I did. I looked up best sandwiches on Maui on the ol' iPhone and lucky for us it said the best were just down the street, so we headed straight there.

We ordered their Southern Squealer of pulled pork, Hawaiian BBQ sauce and cheddar cheese topped with cole slaw on a roll with a side of Maui onion potato chips and potato mac salad. It was all very tasty and we were happy I had a hankering for a sandwich instead of going to the original place we had planned. This is one of those places we plan on eating again when we go back in July and recommend to others. 

Maui Wedding Planning Trip: The Magic of Iao Valley

I'm so excited to finally get to share our visit to Iao Valley with all of you. This place is truly magical. You must go there when visiting Maui. Once we had made our way out of the airport and we were on the hunt for Geste Shrimp Truck (another must when you are on the island), I noticed these beautiful mountains and commented on how much I liked the looks of them. I even took the picture below of them. Little did I know that they were part of Iao Valley and we would be there in just a couple days.

The drive up to Iao Valley is very pretty. Also known as the Valley of Supreme Light, I could see why. There is so much to see. Really, make sure you check this place out on your next trip to Maui. I've even been thinking about going back there on our next trip. 

When you get to the end of the road there is a parking lot that you pay to park in. Or you can park along the street for free. We just paid. It was only $5 and we didn't have to deal with other parking. It was also really close to the entrance. Every once in a blue moon, I like to go the easy route. Yeah, those who know me know that's not very often! :) 

Maui Wedding Planning Trip: Hali'imaile General Store

Once we were done swimming and had gotten cleaned up back into our vintage Hawaiian wears, we headed over to Hali'imale General Store to give their food a try as a possibility to have our reception dinner there. It was important to us to find a place that had great food, but wasn't too expensive, had a good vibe to it, wasn't too far from Paia, would be able to accommodate a larger party and our loud crowd wouldn't be heard over everyone else. After reading many on-line reviews stating this was Maui's favorite home town restaurant nestled in pineapple fields on the lower slops of Haleakala crater and many of the Hawaii brides from The Knot stating how much they loved this place, we decided to give it a try.

Hali'imale General Store is in the town of Makawao. Only 15 minutes from where we'd be staying. At least we already knew it met one of our requirements for our rehearsal dinner. It was also an easy drive over. But how would it meet the rest of our requirements?

Maui Wedding Planning Trip: The Town of Paia

After we had our cake tasting, we headed into Paia. First thing on our agenda was to mail out our welcome dinner invitations for the wedding. We stopped in at the post office, mailed them out and talked a bit with one of the locals who said we must go to Paia Fish Market and get a fish burger before we left town. Since we already had lunch plans doing a tasting with our wedding venue, we weren't able to get lunch at Paia Fish Market, but we did stop by and check it out and added it to our list of places to eat when we are back for our wedding.

Just mailed out the Welcome Dinner invitations at the Paia Post Office. 

Our other goal (yes, yes, I'm very goal orientated) for going into Paia was to gather information for our wedding guests on the town. We wanted to make sure we knew what the town had to offer, the feel for it and what it had that would make our guests the most happy. For example, they had a really cute shop, Alice in Hulaland that I know Amanda will love and I can now direct her to go to that store. 

Maui Wedding Planning Trip: Let Us Eat Cake!

Mention cake and I turn into Homer Simpson. Ooohhhh, cake! Complete with a little drool running down my chin. It doesn't matter if it's cake cake, cupcakes or ice cream cake. I love it all. Well, except chocolate cake. Don't even get me started on my disgust for chocolate cake! Oops, too late!

Now you will notice that we did not even try any chocolate cake during our cake tasting. I hate it that much. I don't even want to try it. I don't want it touching my tongue. And I certainly don't want it ruining any of my wonderful tropical cake flavors!

We are having our cake made by Lezley at Mama's Fish House. Yes, that Mama's Fish House. The one every bride goes to on her honeymoon to Maui. The one with not only scrumptious food and delectable drinks, but also amazingly beautiful and delicious desserts. I mean, have you tried their lilikoi creme bruele or their Black Pearl? We are talking down right sinful!

When I first started talking to Lezley about our cake, I kept thinking how am I supposed to pick out cake flavors when I can't even taste them? It's not like it's only vanilla and chocolate (yuck). There were all of these other flavors to pick from. Flavors I'd never had before. Flavors if not done correctly, could be very very wrong! Truth be told, the whole idea of taking a wedding planning trip to Maui was all because we wanted to taste cake!

Maui Wedding Planning Trip: A night on the West Shore

Have you ever had such a long day that it felt like two days? That's how this day was for us. After we had our amazing whale experience and spent most of the day cruising around Lahaina, we headed back to our timeshare. When we arrived the night before it was already dark and when we left in the morning it was still dark, so this was the first time we were seeing it in the light. And it was beautiful. It was right on the beach with tons of tropical flowers.

Originally we were planning on having a little rest when we got back to the timeshare, but once we got there I wanted to get right in the water and pushed for us to get back out the door. Unfortunately, by the time we got down there the wind had come up and it felt to windy to go swimming. Plus, the water was pretty dark by that time, the area had a lot of coral and since we didn't know the beach at all, we figured better safe then sorry. I know, what a bunch of squares, we are!

The view of the beach from our timeshare.