Stanley and Elizabeth Lee
January 25 2005 - A church wedding

Stanley booked his wedding about a month out from his vacation. He phoned us shortly after emailing me and we had a great chat on the phone regarding his wedding. Stanly possessed one of those cool accents of a high-class Brit. Stanley booked our photo/video services and ended up booking with a chapel with another wedding company. Just for your 411, most of our weddings are performed on beaches or private estates, rarely in chapels.

Now, from Stanley's accent, I was expecting meet someone with similar looks to most of our couples from the UK. But to my surprise, Stanley was oriental and from Austrailia! That really threw me. His then fiancée, Elizabeth, who was born in Hong Kong, also lived most of her life in Australia and possessed a strong British accent. I'm not sure why there accent pulled more British than Australian. To be honest, I expect all Aussies to sound a little like Steve Irwin, but I when I meet them...they don't. I guess I throw many people for a spin as well because I am a full blown Chinese, but I sound like a pure American. Unfortunately, I don't even speak my native language at all.

So onto the wedding.

The wedding went okay. The other wedding company's vendors though didn't seem to be very professional to tell you the truth. The organist didn't know how to play very well, the woman wedding singer was really off key and could have made the blooper reel for American idol. The minister though, was good, passionate, always smiling, and very helpful to the couple. Despite all what was said above, the ceremony was nice. Stanley and Elizabeth love made the occasion great.

After the ceremony, we headed to Kaka'ako Waterfront Park to snap a handful of pictures, and then finished up at Magic Island. Stanley and Elizabeth was a quiet couple, but we were still able to get pictures that seemed out of the character. Stanley reminded me of an alternative rockers and I used that to my advantage in some of the pictures.

Jimmy and Carol-Anne
January 20, 2005 JW Marriot Ihilani

Jimmy and Carol-Anne only booked my photography services for their wedding at Ko'olina. I was looking forward to photographing their wedding because I was told that Jimmy had dressed in his Marine uniform. It was my first wedding where the groom dressed in his military uniform, and let me tell you...it looked really sharp. Purely my opinion, but I do believe the Marines have the best uniform out there, and any other branch of the military probably couldn't pull off wearing their uniform for a wedding. Funny thing though, it seemed as though everyone was uniquely dressed that day. Carol-Anne's father dressed in his Scottish kilt. That was pretty cool as well.

Their wedding took place on the lawn in front of the Ihilani. The lighting conditions there were very harsh, as the harsh sun washed the blue sky. Adding to the difficulty were the surrounding trees in the foreground. If a photographer were careless, he could easily underexpose the forefront of the trees, creating a picture with 70% shadows. To combat these problems, I used a rather powerful industrial flash at FULL power. This help balance the exposure of the sun, or the background, with the foreground, the couple and the trees.

The love story of Jimmy and Carol-Anne...we'll get this. They met in Hawaii! Jimmy was stationed here on Oahu and Carol-Anne was vacationing. Carol-Anne actually made the first move and I guess it was love from there on. No he wasn't in his uniform then. He was just hanging out at the Hilton Hawaiian Village.

I do wish them both my best.

UPDATE: Here is an email that we just got from them

"Just thought I'd drop you a quick note in case you did end up using some of our pictures for your web site.

Jimmy and I met when he was stationed over in Hawaii and I was returning from a round the world trip. We met 4 days before I flew home to Scotland. When I left we kept in touch with me returning to Hawaii again a few months later and him visiting me in Scotland after that. That was almost 2 years ago. When we decided on a destination wedding we thought it fitting to return to Hawaii to get married. We had a wonderful day and all our guest enjoyed the exotic location too!

Thanks for all your help with the photography.

Carol-Ann & Jimmy"

Alfredo and Laura Castillo
January 22, 2005

Alfredo and Laura got married at the secret cove at Ko'olina. You couldn't ask for better weather that day as there was nothing but clear blue skies. Laura wore a very simple yet elegant wedding dress; and with her hair down, looked superb. Amazingly, despite trade-winds of 10 mph that day, her hair really didn't move. She credited "lots of hairspray," but I was convinced that it was the amount of hair she had on her head. Laura has a great head of hair that would even make Laura Bush jealous. Alfredo was a fun groom. He kept the photoshoot alive by making Laura laugh throughout the day.

We got some great pictures that day, some which I never thought were possible. The tide was low and I mentioned that it would be really cool if we could take a picture on a rock that was surrounded by water. Laura and Alfredo told me that it would be no problem and they tip-toed their way on a few small rocks and made their way to the boulder. Those shots came out incredible to say the least.

Alfredo and Laura both work in the medical field. Laura I believe is a nurse and Alfredo is some type of medical technician. Alfredo and Laura reside in Arizona, and loved the change of weather that Oahu had to offer. I'm heading up to Arizona in a few weeks and I told Laura that I would give them a holler if I head out to Yuma.

Patrick and Jolene O'ConnerJanuary 21, Magic Island

Pat and Jolene's love story began over twenty years ago. Pat was then a young developer and Jolene was then a working actress slash stuntwoman in Hollywood. Yes Hollywood. There love story started out rather normal. They were friends who grew closer and eventually became more than friends. Jolene though, scared of falling in love, fled, breaking Pat's heart.

Pat soon after, left California and moved to Las Vegas to work as a contractor. Years went by with no sign of Jolene. Then decades passed. Pat soon became convinced that he would never see Jolene again.

Unknowing to Pat, during the passing decades, Jolene could not get him out of her mind, and she was engrossed with a passion to find Pat. Every moment that she got she scoured Las Vegas for him, but he was nowhere to be found. He didn't hang out at his old stomping ground, didn't live in his old house, and to make things worse, his phone number was unlisted. Jolene, like Pat was convinced that she had missed her opportunity to find her true love.

Both being devote Christians, they prayed night and day that God would help them find each other. Then on one miraculous day, twenty years later...he did.

It was just last year when Jolene decided to walk into Target with her son. It was a cloudy overcast day and sunrays pierced through the thick cloud cover above. As if it were a blessing from Heaven, one particular ray beamed its way into Target, and shined directly onto a familiar face. Jolene couldn't believe it. It was Pat! Pat, realizing the miracle that had manifested in Target did nothing but smile the largest smile of his life. That night, they spent hours together in Target, talking, catching up, and falling back in love. Since then, they have not been apart.

Pat and Jolene decided to complete their love story at Magic Island with Diamondhead as their main backdrop. There wasn't a dry eye there...well except for me. I still had to maintain my composer to make sure I could capture the moment. As soon as Patrick and Jolene send in there favorite pictures, we'll post them.

January 22, 2005
Billy and Mariah's Waimanalo "Local Style" wedding.

Billy and Mariah tied the knot on a yard overlooking Waimanalo Beach. The ceremony was performed by a pastor from another wedding company. For their photography package, Billy and Mariah bought 4 rolls: three to be spent during the wedding and pictures after, the last role to be shot at their reception. The wedding didn't start on time unfortunately due to an extremely bad traffic accident leading into Waimanalo. As you may not know Waimanalo consist of a one two-way road, and on that day, a stalled vehicle on the right shoulder ended up complicated everything. Living only 15 minutes away, I planned to get to their wedding early. I left my house at 1pm and arrived at 2:17pm. Mariah, the bride, arrived at 2:15pm. Our scheduled start time of their wedding was at 2pm. Some of her guests were still arriving during the wedding. Despite the minor setback though, everything turned out picture perfect. Mariah was escorted by her father through a small forest. I thought those pictures came out really nice.

Both Billy and Mariah were very easy to photograph. Mariah is very photogenic. Her strong jaw line and high cheekbones are very similar to those of models. Because they bought so many rolls of film, we shot for about an hour after their ceremony ended. We walked up and down the beach looking for photographic opportunities and got a handful of great photos.

After we finished up, we headed back to their father's friend's house for their "local style" backyard reception. It was great, Billy and Mariah hired out a local Hawaiian Band to play, a tent was pitched in the backyard and decorated with local ferns, the atmosphere was very much laid back, fun, which made it relatively easy to capture moments.

Billy and Mariah are headed to London for a one month honeymoon! This is really funny, but so many of many couples this week had some type of connection to London. They either live in London, are going there, or are working there, or have accents like them. Maybe this is sign that I should plan a vacation there soon.

This is a bit off of subject here. But I learned something new about London. Did you know that when you get your marriage license in London, that the process is a lot more complicated than Hawaii? We'll...to start, you head down to the registrar's office to apply for an application. Then, your "will to marry" is posted on a public bulletin board to notify anyone who may want to object to your wedding! After two weeks, if no one says anything, you get your marriage license. Isn't that wild?!! It's part of some type old Catholic tradition or something like that.

January 17, 2005
Kahala Mandarin Hotel

So I have to admit here. In the eight years that I've been in the wedding industry, I have never experienced extremely bad weather at any of my weddings, until Roy and Rosalyn's wedding. Roy and Rosalyn’s wedding was scheduled at the Diamondhead Gazebo on the Kahala Mandarin. That morning, a front had moved over Oahu and large storm started to brew. Forecasters were predicting big rain, and for once, they were right. Immediately upon arriving at the Mandarin, the skies opened up and it just poured. I had not seen rain like this for awhile. Acting quickly, the Kahala Mandarin, moved everything indoors to one of their ballrooms.
The bad weather though did not dampen Roy and Rosalyn's spirits. They were worried about the photos though.

I told them not to worry about the pictures, as I would use the storm clouds as an effect for their photos. I also recommended that since their wedding was being taken indoors, that we should shoot on roll of film in black and white. The pictures as you can see, turned out awesome. If you notice on the lower picture, the storm clouds appear blue. Most of the time, if you underexpose the storm clouds around sunset at the Kahala Mandarin, they pull blue. Storm clouds at Ko'olina at sunset, still pull grey. To your naked eye, they both appear white.

Because Roy and Rosalyn booked their wedding a week out from their wedding date, I didn't get the chance of getting to know them better. I do know that they do have an extremely long distance relationship. Roy, is a computer programmer, who is an American, that lives in London. Rosalyn lives here in America and is planning to move to London shortly. Their love is a testimony that love holds no distance.

It was about a month ago when I got a call from Shelly Boelkens. She told me that she and her father, Rick Bingales, were planning a "surprise" for Glenda (Rick's wife or Shelly's mom, whichever way you want to look at it.) There plans were ambitious, a simple idea that would be complicated to carry out. It consisted of a surprise trip to Hawaii, a romantic re-proposal on Waikiki beach (with a new ring I might add), a vow reknewal ceremony at Ko'Olina secret cove, topped off with a romantic dinner at Roys.

Originally, Shelly had thought that a simple ceremony package was all that her parents needed, but I pitched her on the idea of taping Rick's re-proposal with a hidden camera. She was definitely interested. I told her that I could set Rick up with a wireless microphone and use a digital zoom to get a pretty tight shot from a quarter mile. I then told her that although I had never done anything like this before, it was very possible to pull this off flawlessly. A day later, Shelly got back to me and told me that everything was a go.

captures from their video of the surprise proposal

I just dropped off Sarah's photos to her and she has informed me that she'll write a little love story and email her favorite picture to me. Sarah and BJ tied the knot at sercret cove at Ko'Olina. The weather was basically picture perfect for their wedding...BUT...the hours leading up to their wedding, and the minutes following their wedding, the weather was HORRIBLE!! It was actually so bad that I had called Sarah to see if she wanted to postpone her wedding one day. She said that she would push on rain or shine. And what-da-ya-know, God opened up the skies for her ceremony. I mean really opened it up..there were blue skies! Simply amazing.

Their ceremony was a very small one, consiting of her mother as the only witness.

As soon as those pictures come in, I'll post them :)

From the word's of Russel...

"After many years of devoted loving care for my chronically ill wife, I became widowed just over a year ago. I had spent several memorable extended vacations here in Hawaii and had developed a close friendship with my North Shore rental host family. Mary, my wife, jumped into the unknown in 2001 when she divorced her husband of 34 years. A legal specialist in probate law, Mary helped me with my wife’s estate. We were two grandparents who had known each other for many years, in a distant "in-law" way because my son and her daughter were married. During the last year, our professional ties and weak family links that brought us together blossomed into something special. After separate lifetimes of loving and caring, we both realized that looking back with sorrow at things that could not be changed was not a positive way into the rest of our lives. Our common goals, a bit of God’s chemistry, the coldness of their children to the relationship and the generosity of their North Shore friends, culminated to eloping like teenagers to begin our chosen future together with a romantic wedding at sunset on a Hawaiian beach." - Russ Sadler

Testimonial: "Thanks to you (Steve) and Elias (our minister) for making the 10th a very memorable and stress-free day. The friendly personal service that you specialist in was very much in accord with my own standards of customer service. The continuous feedback at all stages with your "that’s not a problem" response to all my requirements or questions gave me 100% confidence long before I arrived in Hawaii. The day was a true gift from God. The deep blue cloudless sky, a mere whisper of a breeze and gentle rolling waves were the perfect backdrop for our dream wedding. The wonderful warmth that Elias sprinkled over the ceremony turned our dream into such a wonderful reality. Mary and I thank you both from the bottom of our hearts." - Russ Sadler

From Steve Young (Me!): Russ and Mary are from the UK and I believe are our 2nd couple who we married from that country. I have to say, from my experiences, that they are very loving people. I really enjoyed Russ and Mary's company. If they lived in Hawaii, I can see them turning into lifelong friends. During out 2 hour photo session, we had about a 45 minute break as we waited for sunset. It was during this time when Russ and I struck up a conversation about love, life, and its trials and tribulations. I took everything to heart and at the end of our 45 minute conversation, I became a much wiser person.

Russ and Mary's wedding took place on a remote beach on the North Shore. The weather as you can see, was pretty much perfect. Russ did his own video and a lot of his own coordination: choosing the location, etc...etc... As you can imagine, their wedding was very romantic, and perfect. When it came time to exchange rings, the look that they gave each other proved to me that love shows no age...none at all.

Love shows no age...

Just a quick message to those who check my blog everyday, that we have shot 3 weddings in the past few days that were very very touching. We are awaiting the photos from the lab to post them on our site. I'm going to see if I can get one my partnered companies to stream one of our ceremonies for us over the web. It was a vow reknewal ceremony and it was completley awesome. We did a bunch of hidden camera stuff...etc..etc...you'll have to see.

It's never too late... Bill and Rita Bergman at Kailua Beach Park

January 3, 2005

My New Years Eve wedding had completely wiped me out. New Years Day, I fell on the couch to watch a few college bowl games. Although I was tired and unwinding, I still had my companies phone line fowarded to my cell, and my company email right on my wireless laptop. During commercials I would periodically check if there were any new inquiries, questions, that poured in that I would need to respond too. That's when Bill emailed me asking if I were available to set up a quick wedding for him. I emailed back "No problem"

I called Elias, one of our ministers to see if was free, and he said that he was. If Elias were not available, I had alternates in mind who could do it. Bill sent me a quick list of what he needed and I emailed back an estimate right away. We touched bases over the phone shortly after, and we were good to go.

On January 2nd, I was still recovering from my New Years Eve wedding (yes it was a very long day!). I found myself shopping for swimming trunks at costco when Rita, Bill's fiance called. She wanted to add a bouquet and a haku to her package and I told her I could see what I could do. I called my florist and asked him to see if a bouquet could be made by 4pm today, so I could have it for the morning ceremony. He told me it was no problem. I called back, from Costco, to confirm with Rita, that her bouquet was a go.

I arrived back home that day at around 4pm when Bill called to discuss possible locations. I told him about Lanikai, Kailua Beach Park. Since he was renting a vacation home there, he knew very well about those areas. We both chatted for awhile on the phone and decided that I would drop off the leis, bouquets, to his house that evening.

The day of Bill and Rita's wedding, we had incredibly great weather and I was able to snap a full roll of great pictures. Because this was a last minute wedding, I really didn't get to know them as much as I wanted to. But like all our couples, they looked very much in love. I do remember talking to their son though and we shared similar interest. We were both extreme junkies.

The next day I relaxed, was still recovering from my New Years Wedding when I got an email from Bill that he was interested in getting married in a few days.

During there ceremony, I was quite taken by their raw emotions toward each other when they said their vows. Rita cried, and Bill choked up. I still fight back tears every so often when I witness raw emotion such as these. Weddings can be real tear jerker and it's something you really don't get used too.

Bill, Rita, if you're reading this...I wish my very best.

Llewellyn and Robyn Pearce decided to tie the knot on New Years Eve at the Bayer Estate. Llewellyn is from Canada, a genius if I could add. I think he mentioned that he was a geologist and a doctor! Robyn is a very pretty woman who continues to dedicate her life to teaching children. She is from Australia. They chose Hawaii as it was smack dab in the middle for both families. Their ceremony was one of the most beautiful I had ever seen because they wrote their own vows. Our own minister even found it hard to fight back tears. They are truly perfect for each other.

Project notes: This wedding truly took a lot of coordination because they both lived in Australia, and the timezone difference was quite difficult to handle. To give you an example of the complexity of the coordination: Their ceremony was held at the Bayer Estate, while their reception was held at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, a 20 minute drive away. Their guest, about 50 of them, were scattered throughout Waikiki and a large passenger bus had to be hired to transport them from Waikiki, to the Bayer Estate, then to the Hilton Hawaiian Village. Because this was a New Years Wedding, customize New Years centerpieces were made. To complicate things even more, a huge storm threatened to spoil the day. Yeah, to say the least, we did work our tails off on New Years Eve!

Everything though turned out perfect. It didn't storm at all, despite weather forecasters predicting a huge downpour! I shot a few rolls of film in black and white to use the overcast sky as effect rather than a deterrent.

The signature Lanikai Mountains in the background. Surprisingly, it was storming all over town except for Lanikai. And the background here was the only patch of blue skies which we could find.