I can’t believe there are less than 300 days until my wedding day! While there is still a lot of time until we say “I Do,” wedding planning is in full swing and I wanted to make sure to document the whole process since I’m planning my own wedding and it only happens once in a lifetime! I’m so excited to be partnering with The Knot, which has been a lifesaver for planning our wedding, starting with helping us pick our wedding venue – Paliku Gardens at Kualoa Ranch in Oahu, Hawaii.
I’ve never been the type of girl who’s been dreaming of her wedding day, with scrapbooks or Pinterest boards of her dream dress/cake/venue/etc. Since Mike and I recently moved to Hong Kong, we weren’t sure where we were even going to have our wedding since we felt a world of destination wedding possibilities open to us. After getting engaged in November, we booked a trip to Thailand that February with the thought of scouting potential wedding venues there. But then a bit of serendipity happened.
I was planning activities for my family vacation in Hawaii this past January and knew that we wanted to go to Kualoa Ranch. It’s famous for being a film location for Jurassic Park/World, Lost, and a long list of other TV shows and movies, and you can ride ATVs through valleys and pastures.
When looking on their website to see what ATV tour options were available, something in their navigation piqued my attention – WEDDINGS. Kualoa Ranch is an expansive property, and so outside of the filming locations and tour routes, they also have separate areas of the estate for weddings and events. I started googling, and stumbled upon The Knot, where there was extensive information on the venue, photos, and most importantly, reviews. There were so many glowing testimonials from real brides. I started falling in love with the venue without ever setting foot it in, and so I contacted Kualoa Ranch through The Knot and booked a wedding site visit right before our ATV tour was scheduled.
I used The Knot’s venue search to look at other options in the area in case I wanted to schedule other tours, but nothing else was able to match the enthusiasm I had for Kualoa Ranch. A big reason was that I knew from the listing and reviews that the venue allows you to bring in everything yourself, from catering to alcohol, which would help us keep costs down compared to the wedding packages from the resort venues while allowing for full customization. And so I took a gamble and only planned a tour at Kualoa Ranch, a gamble which ended up paying off since we only had to visit one venue.
I actually kept the wedding venue tour a surprise. My parents and sister arrived at Kualoa Ranch thinking we would be hopping on ATVs, and instead were greeted by Kualoa’s amazing wedding coordinator. It was only after we were done looking at the venue that my parents fully understood what just happened, and after the shock wore off, we all agreed that Paliku Gardens would be the perfect place for the wedding.
What’s amazing about Paliku Gardens at Kualoa Ranch is that on one side you have a view of a small island peeking out of the ocean, and on the other side you have a view of those gorgeous mountains made famous by so many TV and film productions. I’ll share more about the venue, its features and what we did with them after the big day, but I’m so excited to have the venue and wedding date set and wanted to share this very first step in planning our wedding with The Knot. Stay tuned for more as I’ll be sharing my wedding vision, dress shopping experience, registry plans, and more from my wedding planning journey.
