MALIA & JORDAN

Maui Tropical Plantation Wedding

Malia and I hit it off from the start, and she was looking for a florist for her wedding at Maui Tropical Plantation. She's from Maui but currently living in the mainland, so we talked about Merrie Monarch, Lehua's, tropical flowers, and families during our conversations. She was very humble and wanted to keep costs down while her family wanted to add designs to the wedding. It was adorable to watch their interaction. Her dad gave me the freedom to create something different and had a lot of meetings on-site with my design team and rental companies to come up with decorating the entire property with seven other locations. Malia's father wanted to "surprise" our couple with an outdoor live canopy 40' x 40' of greenery and hanging white orchids, which would be over the dancefloor and ten-piece band out on the patio. I love surprises!!!

Collaborating with the team at MTP was a lot of fun and especially to come up with some wild ideas as the first buyout for a wedding, I mean we were talking about floating floral designs with candles in the pond LOL. As we got closer to the wedding, we concentrated on specific areas of importance and moved the outdoor installation into the sugar room. My team and I hung greenery from the ceiling and then full stems of white orchids along with lei strands from 4ft to 20ft above the dance floor. This installation took us almost the whole evening as we also dressed up the curtain swags.

Our other areas of focus were the ceremony area with the beautiful Pu'u Kukui and Iao mountains, the cocktail and bar area for the cocktail hour, and the restaurant for the reception. Later the dance room would be unveiled. Having a "fear of heights" is not a great thing being a florist, especially when you have to hang on 30ft ladders to do the install!

The wedding day was fun, heartfelt, and memorable. Watching the expressions of the guests and family interactions of the day is what it's all about for me.