Island I Do
by Joshua Tehee
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When Frank and Holly Nunez were married there was no photographer snapping candid shots of the couple in love, no throng of friends and family to greet the newlyweds, just the downtown courthouse and Holly Nunez fresh off a 12-hour work shift. For the honeymoon, she went home and slept.
It wasn't exactly the romantic day she'd envisioned.
So, when the time came to plan an actual ceremony, the couple wanted something special. A year later, they hopped a plane and headed for Hawaii for a Maui wedding - though not without some planning.
"I always felt like I wasn't really married," says Holly Nunez, who got the idea for a destination wedding from a friend who was married at Disneyland. She discovered she could actually save money by forgoing the traditional nuptials. Including airfare and hotel, the Maui trip would actually be half the price of a local wedding. With the money they saved, the couple even paid for a local photographer to accompany them and document the trip. She'd get those pictures after all.
Of course, there were considerations to be made.
The guest list had to be tweaked.
It was difficult for friends - even the groom's best friend - to make the trip. So, the wedding party was small, just Holly and Frank, their parents and the couple's four children they share from previous marriages. The couple worked with Precious Maui Weddings, a company she found online that specializes in Maui marriages. The company took care of most of the details - finding a location, booking a minister - while Holly focused on plane tickets and accommodations.
Holly's dress had to be shipped over a week in advance - you know how airlines are with luggage - and her 9-year-old daughter had to be convinced the plane trip wouldn't be so scary.
Once they were there, it wasn't all warm sand and sun either. Friends joked it was her black cloud hanging overhead.
Indeed.
For all the hype, Hawaii can have weather concerns that can affect a wedding.
The night they arrived the island had a hurricane warning. The following day an earthquake in Peru sent the island into tsunami mode. The planners scrambled to come up with plan B - moving the wedding off the beach and indoors if the weather took a bad turn. The hairstyle Holly planned to wear was scraped for what she calls "hurricane hair."
And other things arose.
During playtime at the beach one of the children was stung by a jellyfish. It was painful, but not permanent.
In fact, the wedding itself almost didn't happen.
The wedding party spent hours driving around the island, looking for the giant lava rock that hid the beach where they were to be married. When they finally arrived, it was almost an hour late, and the sun was quickly going down.
But in the end, it was perfect, Holly says. "All your senses are going at the same time."
She heard the waves rolling into the shore as the minister sang a traditional Hawaiian marriage song. She felt the humidity and mist on her skin, and smelled the sweet scent of fresh leis.
At one point, two turtles swam up along the beach, playing in the surf. "They looked like they were waving almost," says Diana Avila, the bride's mother. She took it as a sign - turtles are a symbol of longevity in Hawaii, she says.
The couple got more than a wedding; they got a vacation for the entire family. None of the family had been to Hawaii before, so they spent time as tourists, taking in a luau and going snorkeling.
Avila is hooked. She's trying to figure out a way to make it back in December.
If she was getting married, Hawaii would be the spot, she says.
"I'd dig up my bottom dollar to do it."