9 Tips for Planning Your Destination Elopement

We’ve been helping couples plan their Hawaii elopement for over 40 years, and we’ve seen the term “elopement” change over time.

“Eloping” used to mean the couple getting married in secret, then telling family and friends they were married after the wedding took place.

Nowadays, “eloping” typically means having a destination wedding, but it's just the couple celebrating their special day together. For some, it could even be a small wedding with family and closest friends to witness your vows!

A Small Hawaii Wedding - Easy and Affordable

Since 1978, Weddings of Hawaii has been planning small beach weddings and elopements here in beautiful Hawaii.

With most traditional weddings having a guest list of 150-200, many consider anything less than 100 people to be a small wedding. However, when you compare a traditional wedding to a Hawaii destination wedding, “big” and “small” take on different meanings.

Many are surprised to discover we think of a “big” wedding as 50 or more. For us, a “small” wedding is usually 20 or less. We know a 20-person wedding sounds super small, but sometimes less is more!

Flower Options for Your Special Day

While we do have galleries of our Hawaiian floral arrangements, we wanted to make a quick guide to help our couples understand and visualize some of your flower choices. 

Bridal Bouquets

The bridal bouquet is generally regarded as the most important floral arrangement for the ceremony, and we have many options for you. You can choose from our Classic, Premium, Elite, or Custom bouquets. 

SANDY BEACH Weddings - EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW

Sandy Beach is located on the southeast coast of Oahu and is a well-loved beach by locals and visitors alike.

As with all our Hawaii beach wedding locations, we have photos and videos in our Sandy Beach gallery, but we like sharing all the details about each location to help you decide if this is the best location for your beach wedding!

Note: Sandy Beach is best for weekday ceremonies or early mornings on the weekends. Weekends get very crowded with the local population.

While we wouldn't normally hold the ceremony this close to the waves, your photographer will likely encourage you to get your feet wet for some shots ;)

Capturing memories with photo and video is an important part of your day, and we want to give some tips to make sure you look your best and are comfortable with your team.

Keep in mind your attire can be a factor in how comfortable you'll be. There's a big payoff for choosing wisely for your beach wedding dress and groom attire for a beach wedding! Besides your clothing, here are our tips for your photo and video shoot.

Photography

Our professional photographers will greet you with a warm aloha and lead you through everything from start to finish. They know it’s not every day you turn up for a photo shoot, so they’ll do their best to make you comfortable.

Tips to Remember:

• Relax and enjoy yourselves. The day is meant to be fun, so don’t take the photo shoot too seriously.
• Let your photographer know if you have any special requests. If there’s a particular pose or photo you’ve seen on our website that you know you want, just ask.
• Have good posture. Standing and sitting up straight are more flattering.
• Not sure about your smile? Mix it up. Your photographer will take a lot of pictures, so feel free to try a variety of expressions.
• Don't be late to your ceremony or it'll cut into your photo/video time.
• Following your ceremony, your photo shoot will start with group shots. If you have a large amount of guests, prep them so they know not to disappear. These take more time than you might think. 
• Love on each other. You’ll see the emotion and joy in the final pictures!
• Here are another 9 photography considerations to help you be as prepared as possible.