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- We have planned Maui
Weddings for over 1300 couples! We can help make your dream of
a wedding in paradise come true.
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- Check out our NEW
Photographic Blog: "Will You Maui
Me"
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We are a Maui Wedding Planner that you can trust.
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Maui Wedding
Planner: 10 Tips for
Selecting the Right Hawaiian Wedding Coordinator
by Rev. John Souter
- Maui has been voted "best island in
the world" many times over. But perhaps you didn't know that Maui just
happens to be the most popular wedding destination in the entire Pacific
Ocean. Half of all the Hawaiian weddings taking place in the islands of
aloha, are performed on Maui. It beats out Hawaii, Kauai and even much
more populated Oahu (where Honolulu is located).
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There are many reasons for this, including the great beaches, the
awesome sunsets, the uncrowded conditions, and a romantic atmosphere
like no other island in the world. But before you run off and book your
own Maui dream wedding, it might be a wise idea to select a
top-of-the-line Maui wedding planner. This article will give you just
the information you need to make the best selection of your Hawaiian
wedding planning company.
1.
Find a Maui wedding planner who has a decent website.
It is virtually impossible for any
company to do wedding planning on the island of Maui without a website.
The competition is too keen to be without one. Therefore, an attractive
well thought out website will give you a good clue as to just how busy
and professional the Maui wedding company really is. Of course you can
be fooled by a company who hires a great web designer, but this is
probably a good place to start in your search.
A good website should make sense. It should give you
enough information so that you can make an intelligent decision about
a wedding company before you even call. It should be well organized and
easy to navigate,
because you won't want a disorganized company coordinating your wedding.
And the website should give you a good sense of the philosophy and
outlook of those who run the company.
2.
Choose a Maui Wedding Planner who gives you their names and business address
and phone numbers right on their website.
In every wedding market, there are
always a number of companies who seem to like hiding behind their
website. In some cases, they have worked at making their identity hard to find
because they don't enjoy too much contact with their clients. They will cloak their
identity, giving no personal information. They may even cloak their
business name and address so that you don't really know who you're
dealing with. Some go so far as to eliminate their phone number so
that you can only reach them through e-mail. Any of these signs
could indicate that you are dealing with a fly-by-night company or
one who is only a middle-man, hiring another company of Maui to
perform their actual weddings.
3.
Select a Maui Wedding Planner located on Maui.
There are actually wedding coordinating companies
who are trying to coordinate weddings on Maui from Oahu and even from the
mainland! These companies, inevitably, will have to "farm out" the
onsite coordination of your wedding to someone here on Maui. That means
they act like a middle-man, and generally have to charge higher prices.
But most importantly, they will
not be able to effectively follow-up with your wedding if anything goes
wrong.
The larger your wedding, the more
likely it is that something could go wrong. Can you imagine having to
depend upon a coordinator who is not even at your wedding, who is
located on some other island or the mainland? Make certain, before you
book, that your Maui wedding planner is indeed, on Maui.
4.
Select a Maui Wedding Coordinator who answers their phone.
On the surface, this may seem like a silly point.
Doesn't everyone in business answer their telephone? Actually, many Maui coordinating
companies here prefer to hide behind their telephone answering service,
so they can call back their
clients at their own convenience. If you call them on different days and
you can't get through to a real person, or worse, they don't call you
back in a timely manner, this could be a sign that they do their wedding
planning service on the side, part time. Do you really want a part time
Maui wedding planner?
5.
Pay attention to the way a Maui Wedding Planner treats you on the
telephone.
You will want to do business with a
coordinator who treats you with respect. If someone is rude or
quick, do you really want them organizing your wedding? How you are
handled on the phone is a good indication of how you will be treated on
the day of your wedding. If a wedding planner doesn't have the time to get back
to you in the beginning, before you have even booked, how easy will they be
to work with after they have your deposit and you're "stuck" with them?
6.
Find a Maui Wedding Planner who has experience.
- Over the years many young women have
told us that they see planning weddings as a dream job. Here on Maui, there are many who
have thrown up a quick website and begun to tell
their friends that they are now a Maui wedding planner. Do you want to be someone's first (or second) wedding? Experience is
so important,
especially here on Maui where their are so many different things to know,
including wedding locations, legal questions, types of flowers, the
difference in wedding vendors, which ministers and photographers are the
best, etc., etc. A company who has a track record of having planned
and coordinating many different Maui weddings is more likely to be good, or
they wouldn't still be in business.
7.
Choose a Maui Wedding Planner who has planned and overseen a variety of
different weddings.
- If You want a wedding planner who has
the kind of experience which matches your needs. For instance, if you
are planning a larger wedding with catering and entertainment with lots
of details, you don't want to hire a Maui wedding coordinator who has
planned only a few larger weddings. Make sure to ask if they have
planned the kind of wedding that you want to have.
8.
Make certain your Maui Wedding Planner will actually be at your wedding.
- There are cut-rate Maui wedding
companies who only perform front office services. They book a minister,
a photographer and maybe a videographer to do your wedding, but they
don't send an on-site coordinator to oversee everything, because that would
mean they would have to raise their prices and cut down their
competitive edge.
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- If no on-site wedding coordinator
will be showing up, who will make certain that everyone knows what
they're doing? And if for some reason, one vendor (like the minister) is
late or heaven forbid, does not show up at all because of some mix up,
who will pull everything together and get a backup? Unless your wedding
involves just a minister, and no one else, you want to be certain that a
Maui wedding planner will be in attendance when your ceremony is
performed.
9.
Choose a Maui Wedding Planner with the "Aloha Spirit."
- "Aloha" means love in Hawaiian. Those
of us who live in Hawaii enjoy the attitude that is here and which
comes, first and foremost from the native Hawaiians. But all of us who
live on Maui and who enjoy the incredible job of planning weddings for
all our couples, want to practice the spirit of Aloha. We want to treat
you like you're family (or ohana, as we say here). It is wise to look for
a Maui wedding coordinator who truly treats you like you're part of the
family.
10. Choose a Maui Wedding Planner
who is a member of the Better Business Bureau.
- This final point is probably our most important tip. In any industry there are always companies who do not
treat their clients well. Even companies who have been in business for
years. On Maui there are several wedding planners who have a
long list of unhappy or semi-happy couples. The easiest way to avoid
such companies is to check up on them with the Hawaii Chapter of the
Better Business Bureau. You can be sure that a company with a number of
black marks will rise to the attention of the BBB. A member company
offers you one more guarantee that you will go home happily "Maui'd."
You can view our Maui Wedding Packages at:
Call Toll FREE Maui Weddings at
1-800-856-3270
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Maui Me
(R),
Inc.
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120 Peahi Road, Haiku, Maui, HI 96708
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USA Toll Free Number: 1-800-856-3270
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Toll Free from Canada: 1-800-920-0611
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Local Maui Number:1-808-575-2002
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Fax Number: 1-808-575-9744
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