Affordable Maui Weddings Website

I have a Maui wedding down in Makena to run off to, but I spent the morning hours today updating the Affordable Maui Weddings Website. I've replaced the logo on every page in the site, as well as updating a number of pages extensively. The pages that I've updated include:

Affordable Maui Weddings Details
Affordable Maui Wedding Photography
Affordable Maui Wedding Packages
Affordable Maui Wedding Videography
Affordable Maui Wedding -- About Us page

Check them out.

Affordable Maui Weddings

We named ourselves Affordable Maui Weddings because that's exactly what we offer: affordable Maui weddings! I was surfing on the Internet to see what our competitors are offering and I came upon another Maui weddings site who had an interesting table with a price comparison of other Maui weddings companies along with his own. Of course, his prices were the lowest on the table.

I had to smile, because I wish he would include our company in his comparison. Our prices are much lower than his. The reason we can do this is because we are almost completely self-contained. I am both our main Maui photographer -- you can see my photography website at Maui Photographer and I am also our main minister.

You might wonder how I can do both photography and minister at the same Maui wedding. I take the "before" pictures, then hand the camera over to my assistant (my beautiful wife Susan), who is trained to shoot the wedding proper), and then I do all of the romantic shots after the wedding. As you can see by the photography on this site and also on my photography site, I have a lot of experience and get great results. And that translates into making your Maui wedding that much more affordable.

By the way, I am a "true" minister (as compared to most all of the other ministers on the island). I got my "Rev." and my license the long way, going to a Christian college and spending years being a church planter in Northern California and Oregon. So being the minister is not just one of the hats I wear "to make more money", it flowes out of what I am.

That same competitor's website makes the statement to the effect that a true professional photographer will not sell you his negatives. I know why he says that. There is a lot of money in reprints. I've had other photographers who claim that they made another 30 to 50 percent profit by selling reprints and enlargements to their clients and their family.

I am a popular professional Maui photographer and I choose to sell my negatives and a CDRoms of both my film and digital Maui weddings. Why? To be honest, I don't want the hassle of having to go through those negatives and those CDRoms to make prints for our clients. I would much rather just sell those negatives to you so that you can make your own duplicates and enlargements. That way we all benefit.

So these are just some of the reasons why we are truly Affordable Maui Weddings. We do a quality Maui wedding at a very affordable price. So much so, that our competitors don't want to put our prices on their website!

Please feel free to go to our main web home page for Affordable Maui Weddings as its just been re-written.

Maui Weddings

I just put together a new webpage on our other Maui Me website which is entitled simply: "Maui Weddings"

This page takes 12 common questions people have about their Maui weddings and answers each one with links to appropriate Maui weddings pages and articles on our Maui Wedding Planner blog. We've tried to be pretty thorough on this page, hoping it will be a kind of Maui Weddings Information Site Map for those visiting our website.

Take a look at it and see if it answers your questions. But remember, the BEST way to get your questions answered about Maui weddings is simply to give us a ring. We can cover so much ground so much more quickly on the telephone than we can ever cover in a web page.

And remember, when you call, you are under no obligation whatsoever. We know that you need to answer all your Maui weddings questions before you can even begin thinking about booking. On this new page on our site we also have our article about Maui Wedding Planners and 10 Tips to Help you Select the Right Hawaiian Coordinator.

Larger Maui Weddings

Tonight we performed a larger Maui wedding. The larger the wedding, the more things there are for everyone to think about, and tonight's was no exception. Having your own coordinator is so important, especially when problems or challenges arise. At tonight's wedding, all 18 of our party knew how to get to our beach and had already begun arriving when we discovered that there were several other Maui weddings that would be on our beach.

With a larger group it is always harder to move to a less crowded beach (which is what we often do when we have crowded conditions and a small wedding party). But tonight, that would have been difficult because we had people straggling in, we had other vendors with us: a videographer and two musicians. So we made certain that we quickly grabbed the spot that we like, even though the other wedding had set up an arch, and chairs and had their musicians, videographer and photographer in place.

Without an onsite coordinator, this type of situation would have been a nightmare for any couple. But our newlyweds told us after the wedding how well they thought everything went. Believe me, we worked hard to make everything flow well considering that the other wedding was so large, but we hardly saw them at all.

If you have a larger wedding, be sure and tell your coordinator EVERYTHING that they should know. Tonight, we discovered when our couple was cutting the cake that they had brought some unique cake cutting utensils. So we quickly used them. Then a second set of glasses were brought out at the last moment, which formed a heart when they were placed side by side. We always "go with the flow" when our couples (or their relatives) what to add these unexpected special touches, but it is certainly nice if we know in advance so that we will be prepared.

Also, if you have someone in your group who is older and can't walk on the beach, we should know that in advance. Sometimes couples will arrive with a mother or grandmother in a wheelchair without telling us. Not all of the beaches we go to are very "wheelchair friendly", so it just makes our job harder when we don't know these things ahead of time.

The larger the wedding, the more important details become. This is why we have to charge more for larger weddings. As you can imagine, having a larger group takes more time and more of our attention. It usually also means that there will be a great need for a larger photography package as their are more family shots to take.

For us, a larger wedding is anything beyond 10 or more people. These weddings would be considered small on the mainland, but when everyone is coming from a separate condo or hotel and now of them know their way around the island, it can become a logistical nightmare for the wedding couple if they are not prepared.

We enjoy working with larger weddings, but we ask that our couples work with us and keep us informed about any last second changes and things which they want so that we can give them the kind of service that we love to offer our Maui wedding couples.

If you'd like more information on our larger weddings with Affordable Maui Weddings, check our our Larger Maui Wedding page.

Maui Weddings Updates

I try to update several of our key web pages so that they'll be more search engine friendly each week. We have a good company which offers great service, but that means nothing unless people find us. So many couples coming to Hawaii need to find us to get married, so its important that we show up in the search engines.

I have just recently updated our main site on Maui Me. I've updated both the Maui Weddings Packages page and the Maui Me home page. I also did some work on some of our companion websites. One of them is called 1st Choice Maui Weddings. On that site I updated the 1st Choice Maui Weddings Home page as well as the 1st Choice Maui Weddings Ala Carte page. What makes that page so nice is that it contains a lot of our individual prices for couples who want to add to their basic Maui Wedding Package. We are going to place another, larger version of that page on the Maui Me website soon.

I've also updated my Maui Photographer site home page. As well as the home page for Affordable Maui Weddings. In addition, I've done some work on another companion site, All-Inclusive Maui Weddings, both the home page and the Weddings Page.

Maui Weddings | Maui Wedding Planner | Maui Wedding Packages

I thought I would put these seven promises here as they are from our other website for Maui Me, Inc.: Maui Me Site.

As a Maui Wedding Planner -- We Make Seven Promises to all of our Maui Weddings Couples

1. We are a Maui Weddings Planner who promises to answer the phone. We know how frustrating it is when you can't reach a business on the telephone. If you appreciate talking directly to your Maui wedding planner, and getting return calls (and e-mails) whenever we're out performing one of our Maui weddings, then you'll enjoy the way we do business, because we know your time is important. Call Maui Me (R) toll FREE at 1-800-856-3270 anytime to get all your questions answered.

2. We have extensive experience having coordinated many Maui Weddings. We have planned over 1200 Maui weddings for our couples! We're in our eighth year as one of the busiest of the Maui weddings companies. We are a Maui Wedding Planner who has coordinated and sizes of weddings, from small to large Maui weddings. We will use our extensive experience to create a romantic dream Maui wedding for you.

3. We are a Maui Weddings Planner who is a proud member of the Better Business Bureau. Maui Me (R) promises to continue offering our Maui weddings service in same honest way that all our couples appreciate. You can click on the BBB Logo on the left and see the reliability of our record right on the BBB site.

4. We are a Maui Weddings Planner who has our own professional Maui Wedding Photographer on staff. John Souter has extensive experience as a Maui weddings photographer. (Click here to see his Maui Photography Website). Having him available on staff means we can keep our prices reasonable. Whether you have specific custom photographic needs or just want a simple Maui wedding photography package, he promises to provide exactly the kind of Maui photography you want.

5. We are a Maui Weddings Planner who will treat you with aloha. At Maui Me (R) you will notice our attitude from your first phone call. We never take you for granted. We promise to treat you like we would like to be treated, because that's the way we treat all of our Maui weddings couples.

6. We are a Maui Weddings Planner who loves what we do. You want to feel that your Maui wedding is a truly romantic experience. We promise to continue striving to achieve our high standards, because we love creating memorable Maui weddings for our couples.

7. We are a Maui Weddings Planner who will save you money with our Maui Wedding Packages. If you check around, you will find that our Maui wedding packages are very affordable. We can do this because of our experience staff who help us offer quality service and reasonable prices. The value we offer is great in each of our wedding packages. Be sure and look at our Maui Wedding Packages page, and each of our individual wedding packages:

Maui Wedding Packages #1: The Aloha Package

Maui Wedding Packages #2: The Mahalo Package

Maui Wedding Packages #3: The Ohana Package

Maui Wedding Packages #4: The Kula Package

We've Been the Maui Wedding Planner for over 1200 Maui weddings since 1998.

Remember, this will be your Maui wedding, so you can have anything you want. To create your own custom wedding here on Maui, call us:

Toll FREE Maui Weddings at 1-800-856-3270

Maui Nanny | Maui Babysitter | Maui Child Care

Here we are on Easter and I'm busy working away on my daughter's website and doing my blog. Over a month ago, we first introduced our daughter Rebecca's brand new website about her Maui Nanny - Many Babysitter service. This is another reminder about this service, which is so needed in a place like Maui when you are on vacation and you need help with the kids.

Rebecca's site has just received a total make-over as we wanted to make it easier for the search engines to find and properly "see" it. She offers both a Maui Babysitting service and a Maui Nanny service along with a Maui elderly care service if you have brought seniors along with you and they have a tough time getting out (and need something to look after them).

Let me list out each of the seven web pages that she has on her Maui Nanny site:

Her Maui Nanny - Maui Babysitter Home page.
Her Maui Nanny - Maui Babysitter Policy page.
Her Maui Nanny - Maui Babysitter Rates page.
Her Maui Nanny - Maui Babysitter Elderly Care page.
Her Maui Nanny - Maui Babysitter Philosophy page.
Her Maui Nanny - Maui Babysitter About Me page.
Her Maui Nanny - Maui Babysitter Booking page.

On the "booking" the form does not yet work. So you can book her by calling her telephone number.

Finding a quality Maui Babysitter and/or a quality Maui Nanny is hard on the Internet because so often all sorts of unrelated sites come up (like someone who visited Hawaii last year and also takes about their great babysitter at home). So we're hoping that her site will show up high for people who are looking for a Maui Nanny and a Maui Babysitter.

Last second Maui Beach Wedding

We performed a Maui beach wedding tonight for a couple from Texas. John and Paige booked their trip and their wedding at the last moment. Just about a week and a half ago, Susan did all of their last second travel as well as all the details of their on-the-beach Maui wedding. So it is possible to easily do last second trips and weddings with us, where we take care of all of the details.

The couple tonight chose to dress formally. Even that was a last second decision, when we received their call just three days ago about tuxedo rentals. I must say, as a Maui wedding photographer (see my Maui photograper website), I love to shoot couples who are dressed formally. A white wedding dress with a flowing train and a stylish tuxedo contrast so nicely with the beauty of a Maui beach with one of our awesome sunsets. "Casual elegance" is probably a good phrase to describe how they looked on the beach.

The sunset tonight was great. No rain. No other weddings on the beach. We had one of our favorite spots all to ourselves, just Susan and myself and John and Paige. You simply can't beat the beauty of Maui for this type of last second wedding. They can go back with great Maui photography and show it to all their friends.

Maui Beach Wedding Sunsets

If you're coming to Maui and you are having a sunset wedding (as most Maui couples do), you might be interested in looking at a website that gives sunrises and sunsets in Hawaii. In the past, we've relied on a sunset calendar to remind us when the sun will set on each of our wedding nights. But this little site is much more accurate and easy to use.

Go to the Sunrise/Sunset Site and put in the city where you'll be having your wedding (like Kihei), the month and year, and the "civil twilight" (which is explained on the site) and you will be given the sunset time of your Maui beach wedding.

A true sunset wedding is not actually performed as the sun goes down (because that would mean we would miss the beauty of the sunset for your romantic shots). We usually plan our smaller weddings for about one hour before sunset so that we have time to do everything: perform the actual wedding, take photography of the guests and the wedding couple, cut the cake (if there is one), get the video shot, and then do our final romantic photography and videography shots right at sunset.

Free Relationship Advice

Whether they know it or not, many couples need a little Free Relationship Advice. This new Love Builders site offers just that. I'm excited about being able to offer these articles (especially because as a long-time writer (with 50 books) and as a long-time minister with many hours of couseling, I love to share things that I know will help couples survive and thrive.

That's why I'm so excited about this new Love Builder's site that will be offering a ton of free relationship advice. Maybe we should have called this site a Relationship Rescue site.

In doing my research, I've noticed that a lot of couples are intrigued by those charts that show astrological personality types. What they want is to know what type of personality their lover has and if they will have relationship compatibility over the long run. When I learned that fact, I found it exciting. I have a number of great personality analyzation systems that can help couples determine how well they will be able to get along.

So relationship compatibility is definitely one of the articles that we'll be offering on our free relationship advice Love Builders site.

Love Builders

When we first moved to Maui and began our wedding business, I wrote a separate website called Love Builders. The site was full of "how to" articles designed to help single and married couples build stronger love relationships. It was created as part of our philosophy of making our wedding business Maui Me be more of a ministry then just a Maui wedding service. Helping our couples not only to get married, but also to stay married.

The site was very popular, but eventually, we had to take it down. Now, I'm pleased to announce that I'm in the beginning stages of putting up many of those articles once again, rewritten and modernized for today's couples, and this time you will be able to find them right on the Maui Me website in our lovebuilder's folder.

Although I'm just getting started, you might want to take a look at the Love Builders Site Map which will give you an idea of just some of the many new articles we have coming. Just click on this Love Builders Site Map link.

I now have two articles up. I'll talk more about them in later blogs, but you can go directly to them if you like. The first article is entitled: "Five Things Every Woman Needs From Her Man" This article has a number of strong suggestions for both men and women about at least five things that are important in any relationship. I would suggest that a woman might want to have her man read it.

The next article is called: "How to Act Romantic Even When You're Not the Romantic Type." This article gives seven tips for men about how to be more romantic in your relationships. Once again I think a woman is wise to direct her man towards this romantic advice.

We are licensing any of my articles to be placed on other websites as long as each article is used in full (without editing) and an appropriate link is made back to our website. So if you have a website or a newsletter and you want to use any of our growing list of articles, feel free to do so.

Maui Wedding Romantic Memories

Tonight I performed a Maui wedding down in Makena, Maui. As always, I love to ask my couples how they met. The couple, Craig and Kay have known each other for years and have been together as a couple now for six. It is always fun for me to ask how my couples meet. The stories I hear are often amazing.

I've performed many weddings for couples who have met on the Internet. One of my couples met when she filed for divorce. The older lawyer (who had never been married) was so smitten by her that he bowed out of the case (asking one of his partners to take the case) . . . so that he could ask her out. He was so shy, when he called her to say that he wouldn't be her lawyer, he almost tried to talk her out of seeing him.

I married a couple who were childhood sweethearts. Jack and Jill were going steady when she was 14; but she got cold feet and broke up. She pined away in secret for years, too shy to tell him that she was still in love with him. Jack moved away and got married, but it didn't last. He returned to the Seattle area ten years later and went over to Jill's house. But it had just been sold and the real estate agent told him that Jill had been there two hours earlier! But Jack was unable to connect with her.

Ten years went by, and when Jack's 20-year high school reunion loomed, he thought about Jill and wondered in the high school had her address. When he contacted them they said they couldn't give her address out, but that they would forward his e-mail. That very day, she e-mailed him back. Jill had never married and had been thinking about him too all these years.

Six months later they had their own romantic Maui wedding. I married them on the beach in Makena. Sometimes love never dies.

Maui Hotel Wedding

When most people search for "Maui hotel weddings" they do so because they think that to have a quality wedding site, they must go to one of the Maui resorts. That's certainly not the case. Most of the resorts do offer Maui wedding coordinating, but they do so within the bureaucracy of a large corporation. That means, they treat their employees and their clients just like most large corporations treat people -- without a whole lot of personal touch.

So when you book a wedding at many of the Maui resorts, your service will usually not be too personalized. For example, we have had brides who have already signed up with a Maui hotel wedding service complain that whenever they call, it is difficult to speak to the same coordinator who knows what is happening on their wedding. Often, you'll find a "one-size-fits-all" attitude. Some brides have reported to us that within the Maui hotel wedding packages, every bride receives exactly the same bouquet -- no exceptions can be made. We've had brides order their flowers through us, because the resort they had contracted with wouldn't give them what they wanted. They told us it was cheaper for them just to ignore the bouquet the Maui resort was offering (they couldn't get any credit for not using it) and special order exactly the flowers that they wanted through us.

So often a couple will sign up with a hotel/resort and then call us because they are so frustrated. Because of the Maui resort's cancellation policy, their hands are tied, but they are not happy with the quality of the service they are receiving. So call us BEFORE you book a Maui hotel wedding so you can get an idea what we have to offer.

Many Maui wedding couples don't realize that we can do everything that the resort will be doing for you -- but better. We will also charge you so much less than they will. Almost all of the Maui hotels will allow us to book their wedding sites for our couples. Just because you are staying at a resort doesn't mean you have to use their Maui hotel wedding coordinating services. Check on their prices and then give us a call, and you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Affordable Maui Weddings Updates

I just finished today doing a lot of new updates on the Affordable Maui Weddings web site. I've added a lot of new photographs, replacing some older ones, re-worked our logo on the first page, re-written a lot of copy on my way to re-writing the entire site.

The pages to be rewritten with major changes are the Home page, the Maui Now, the Ministers page and the Maui Wedding Packages page.

Maui Babysitter

Two weeks ago I blogged about my daughter, Rebecca Souter, who is a Maui Nanny. Her Website has been up for about the same period of time. Now, don't let the word "nanny" scare you, as in you have to keep her permanently in your employ while you're on Maui. Basically, she simply offers a quality Maui babysitter.

And that distinction is important. We have many Maui wedding couples who already have children either separately or together. And like all couples with small children they will need time alone (or away) with activities that the kids can't participate in. This is all the more true when you're on your honeymoon. You need some time ALONE to nurture the romance.

So a babysitter is often needed and required. But when you're out of town, who ya gonna call? The Maui Babysitter (a.k.a. the Maui Nanny), Rebecca Souter.

I should tell you that she is great with kids of all ages. It is not uncommon for the kids to jump up and down when she arrives a second time. She's taken care of some families for years. When they come to Maui, they always call her. In fact, they call way ahead of time to make sure that they get her.

She has a kit which she brings with her including a wide variety of crafts. She doesn't sit around watching the TV, she works with the kids and gets them having fun. Think how important it is for your kids to have some quality time of their own. That's what she provides.

So if you have young kids who would enjoy a quality babysitting experience, make sure you call Rebecca when you come to Maui.

Weddings In Maui

Weddings in Maui are so much fun. Knowing what I know about weddings in Hawaii, even if I wasn't in this business, I wouldn't get married on any other island. The conditions are just so right here. We have the best sunsets (because we have so many great beaches facing the west), the best climate, not too many people (or croweded beaches), and great weddings in Maui services available to meet your all your weddings needs.

That's why, I just wouldn't go to any of the other islands for my wedding. Now that's not to say that you can't have a great experience on the other Hawaiian islands, but I think you'll find that Maui is the best. Just look at the photos of Maui sunset weddings and you'll probably agree with me.

Maui Wedding Dreams

Why have a Maui wedding? Simply because it is the ultimate place to have a wedding dream of a lifetime. There is just something so special about this place that its hard to describe. And when you are here and have the opportunity to tie the knot in this environment, it just becomes the perfect time and place and way to start your new life together.

Susan and I "went away" for the weekend (leaving the kids at home with our oldest daughter). When you live on an island, getting away (without hopping on an airplane) is sometimes a problem. But we own a time-share built on a point system (called WorldMark) and we can use it all over the world, as well as right here on Maui, so we choose to stay a couple of days in Kihei in a two-bedroom condo.

Last night we went down onto the beach as sunset approached. I so enjoy the sound of the ocean pounding onto the shore and we walked hand-in-hand for a couple of miles. The sky began to turn into one of those awesome sunsets I like to call "world class" towards the end of our walk together. The clouds stretched in every direction around us -- white puffy clouds that slowly took on the color of the sun as it dipped in and out of a thick band of cotton shapped fluffy pillows near the horizon. When the sun broke out into a small opening, shinning like a fireball, before sliding off into the ocean.

As it slipped away, the change in the sky's canopy felt like we were in the middle of a painting being created by a master artist like Wyland. (We had browsed in his Wailea gallery earlier in the day). When I looked around behind us you could see that the sky was packed full of clouds. It looked like a storm was coming and it felt like we were sitting in a gigantic ballroom somewhere, and then all these clouds began to turn subtle shades of pink and orange as the sun dipped below the horizon. I call this experience a "bonus sunset" when the clouds, especially the wispy thin clouds up way high begin are transformed and brightened into an incredible display.

Sitting there on the sand with no wedding couple to attend for us was a joy. We love sharing a sunset with our couples, but sometimes it is so much fun to just hold hands and enjoy God's incredible display of artistry for ourselves, relishing the day's waning moments before twilight takes over. I'm so glad we live here on this island. It's hard to believe sometimes how beautiful it can be here. I can see why anyone who has ever seen a sunset on Maui would say to themselves, "that's when I want to get married."

So why come here for your wedding? A better question might be why not? If you can do it; if you can break away from the crowds and the business of a mainland wedding and escape to paradise, do it. You'll never regret it. As I've said before, many of the couples who have an expensive mainland wedding later wish they had just run away to get married. But NONE of those who eloped were sorry about that decision later.

If you are a romantic at heart, this is the place to tie the knot. Because nothing else really compares.

What We Mean By "Affordable Maui Weddings"

Last night we did a wedding for a couple from the Sacramento, California area. (We used to live in Grass Valley, California so we had a lot in common with this couple). They told me that they were planning to get married there in California and had booked a golf course wedding site. When they started to think about those plans, they realized that they would be spending an awful lot of money feeding people they hardly knew and decided to cancel their local booking and come instead to Maui for their wedding.

Even though they gave the golf course three months notice, they still didn't get their deposit of about $600 back. They commented to me after their wedding that even though they wasted that money on a site they were not going to use, they still found it so much cheaper to get married here in Maui than back home -- and of course, it was a whole lot more fun.

Just this morning, I booked a June wedding with the father of the bride and he made a similar statement. They had booked a local venue in Las Vegas (where they leave), but determined that they were far better off coming to Maui for the wedding and then returning later for a reception at home. Again, they won't be getting their deposit back with the Vegas company, yet they are still saving money.

Susan booked a wedding this morning too, and she told me how the bride found us. It seems that she was planning a local wedding, and she they had just decided to cancel their local reservations when one of our brides -- a pretty blonde named Laura who I married just two months ago -- announced at her company that she would be having her wedding photos in the lunchroom at noon. This woman was the first one in the room and she said she couldn't believe the photography, so she definitely wanted to come to Maui and do a paradise dream wedding.

That's what we mean about Affordable Maui Weddings. Not only are we much more affordable than comparable weddings on the mainland, we are also more affordable than our competition. I say that because I know what my competition offers for the same money, and it is not nearly as nice.

And if that isn't all, you get us! ;>) And we really like what we do.

By the way, after a little rain the last few days, the weather today is AWESOME! Susan and I are going to take two days and stay at World Mark down in Kihei (getting away from the kids for a couple of days).

John