Hawai'i Brides

A wedding in Hawaii sounds amazing!! I got married in PA and we had extra significant dances (groom and grandmother) and an extra speech from my husband ❤️ We also had the bridal party be announced individually (no touching) for additional safety. Can’t wait to see your wedding photos 🏄🍰💐🌸

View Quoted Comment Hi Katie! That’s for your input. Bridal party walking down separately for safety - I did not think of that. Thanks!

View Quoted Comment You’re welcome and congratulations!! ❤️🌼🌺

Woo! Can’t believe the time has come for us to get married in Hawaii, I’m finally excited again after postponing. We are actively working with all of our vendors to understand the precautions and regulations they require, as well as deciding what we are comfortable with. A lot of it too will be up to our guests to determine as well, we’ve had open communication and we’re trying to be supportive and understanding of all our guests needs!


We have decided to space the chairs out into family groupings, rather than 1 mass. We’re providing guests with masks if they’d like one for the wedding day or if they didn’t bring their own. Everything of our wedding is outside so spacing people out as much as possible. However, I think the biggest comfort factor we have is that it everyone coming is required to have a negative test and will be retested when we land in Hawaii.

I’m probably not the best person to ask for this. I am having a small wedding. My guests are my family. We’ve celebrated all holidays together. We are not afraid to be close to one another. I refuse to have social distancing and masks in my wedding photos. My guests are aware of this and all feel comfortable. I am not having a wedding party either. My wedding and ceremony is outside as well.

Thanks for making this post, it’s definitely a complicating matter to handle. We’re getting married in August and are hoping by then more people are vaccinated and comfortable attending. Assuming they are, along with Hawaii having their negative Covid test requirements for out of state guests, we will have to just follow the guidelines at that time for Hawaii. Probably have more tables to space out guests and provide masks/hand sanitizers. We shall see!

I am a resident of Oahu and had to cancel my wedding. Right now on Oahu there are not allowed to be social gathering larger than 5 people and with our numbers currently it doesn’t look like it will change any time soon. This includes restaurants. They will not take parties larger than 5.
Oahu also has a strict mask mandate where a mask must be worn in public at all times unless more than 6 feet is maintained.

View Quoted Comment That’s really good to know - we haven’t confirmed our Maui wedding in October yet because we aren’t sure what the current and future conditions will be. Do you have any expectations about how the vaccine may change regulations, especially in resorts?

View Quoted Comment Each island has its own rules. From my understanding, Maui has rules for up to 100 guests on resort property for events. Definitely get in contact with your planner/ resort. We’re getting married on the Big Island and we talk weekly to see how things are developing for March, but all signs are a go.

View Quoted Comment Kaitlin, That’s great to hear!! Keep us posted and best wishes!

View Quoted Comment You should be safe going forward with the wedding, as cases on Maui are going starting to decline. You can always check for updates on mauicounty.gov
Good luck!

View Quoted Comment I downsized my wedding from 200 to 20 people. An outdoor ceremony on the beach with spacing as the government regulates. Afterward we are planning to do a dinner (pending) at a restaurant with outdoot seating, as me and my fiance decided to cancel our reception to keep as many of out loves ones safe as possible.
For the few guests that will be flying in, i provided the govt website that states the rules for testing, along with the govt approved places that hawaii is partnered with. Testing 3 days prior to your trip with tests back and available before flying is required, so i want my guests to set their appointments now. Vault kits also are excepted but quite expensive.

View Quoted Comment Where are you getting married in Big Island?!

View Quoted Comment We’re getting married at the Fairmont Orchid!! I cannot wait.

View Quoted Comment Hi there, we are planning on getting married in Maui in November and so far have been told 100 people max outside. We are only having approx. 40. I have called several hotels and have asked the vendor/ coordinator the rules and restrictions. I was told that guest had to have masks on until seated for ceremony and at dinner. What I haven’t had a clear answer on is, do the bride and groom need to wear a mask during the ceremony? Also have received different answers on wearing a mask at the pool and or beach. Does anyone know exactly the mask protocol for lounging in Maui ? Seems silly to fly to a tropical paradise after being Covid tested and not being able to enjoy the sun by a pool or beach. I understand the social distancing while seated, but not tanning with a mask on your face. Also, I would not want wedding photos with a mask on my face.

Last year, we postponed our 65 guest wedding from 10/10/20 wedding to 10/30/21. But, everything it still very uncertain for future events. So, as a back up plan we’ve also been looking into Oahu (either elope or invite 20 people at max). So I’ve been in touch with a planning company and they shared Hawaii’s guidelines. I found it interesting that social gatherings can only have 5 people… But funerals are allowed to have 10 people, spiritual services are allowed to be at 50%, gyms can be at 25%, etc. I can’t quite understand the theories behind some of it, especially when comparing an indoor gym with 25% capacity to 10 family/friends outside for a ceremony followed by a dinner reception outdoors at a restaurant. The guidelines just seem all over the place 🤔. Although our wedding date is in October, it’s still a bit of a gamble to plan anything right now besides a one-on-one elopement/weddingmoon in Hawaii.

Our original destination plans are for Las Vegas. But they are at 25% and our ceremony/reception venue (indoors) is only allowing 20 people. So that makes it a little more difficult to meet the Food & Beverage minimum amount (since it doesn’t make sense to spend the same amount for 20 people that we planned to spend on 65). So we have some decisions to make. Our hope was to decide at the beginning of March. But I’m not certain that will be long enough and we also want to give our selected family and friends enough heads up for a Hawaii. So we might push the decision to April (6 mos. prior) and see if anything has changed by then.

For precautions, I’m totally fine with cute wedding masks, providing hand sanitizer and wipes as part of the welcome bags and keeping as much distance as possible.
How many guests are you having for your March wedding?

I greatly appreciate this thread as a bride who has had to postpone our Hawaii wedding twice now. What a process this has been. My fiancé and I have been together for 16 years and engaged now for almost three. We were originally scheduled to have our wedding at the Four Seasons Ko Olina on 4/21/20. At the beginning of the pandemic, we decided to postpone our wedding of 20 people to 9/9/20 and as of now, we don’t have a date. The resort has been great to work with, but as many have already expressed, the local guidelines have been very confusing and made for some difficult decision making, and this is coming from someone in CA.


The resort is set to reopen on 3/11/21 and we have been in contact with our event coordinator who has explained that moving forward, there will be modifications for weddings on their property such as masks being worn at all times aside from when actively eating or drinking (including ceremony and during photography). Dancing will be limited to only the special dances (I.e. first dance, father-daughter, mother-son) and there will be no buffet dinner options for the reception. When we last spoke to our event coordinator two weeks ago, we were informed that restaurants have resumed 50% capacity along with many other tourist attractions. We were also told that anyone who has tested positive for Covid, including those who have recovered and been cleared by a physician as being no longer contagious but would still test positive due to antibodies, will still be expected to quarantine for the 10 days. We’ve been considering other locations for our wedding where we would have more of a guarantee to not need to postpone again but it’s very hard for us to give up quite yet. I also don’t want to continue stringing along our family and friends and want to be respectful of being a visitor to the island. We are entirely supportive of mask wearing and social distancing but having to wear one walking down the aisle and during photography is a difficult to wrap my head around, especially when everyone has already provided a negative test to be there. I wasn’t aware of the differences between Oahu and Maui and might consider looking into transferring our event if things don’t look up. I’ll definitely be following this thread as time goes on. Thank you to all for sharing your experiences.

As of right now O'ahu is in Tier 3! Events allowed up to 10 people, and they're expected to go into Tier 4 (25 people) by March 25th. What's the date of your wedding?

We're definitely going to do temperature checks, offer hand sanitizer, and spacing ceremony seating out as well. We're a little less stressed about it since most of our guests will be/are planning to be vaccinated by our wedding (in early May), and everyone is required to take a Covid test to get onto the island anyway.

I also really don't like the idea of wearing a mask down the aisle (I mean, we're going to have a full face of makeup under that mask, right?)...might need to come up with some outdoor, six feet apart, creative way for my dad to walk me down the aisle?

I'm kinda curious what the options are to hire a lab/nurse to administer rapid 15 minute covid tests as guests arrive? Although, that's likely way out of my budget anyway HAHA -_-;

Ok - so I totally looked this up...I mean, the wedding industry took a TOTAL hit (and still is) with Covid. Can someone convince them to release these rapid tests to the wedding industry so event sizes can increase? Pretty please?

https://www.civilbeat.org/2021/02/hawaii-officials-grapple-with-how-to-use-720000-rapid-covid-19-tests/

View Quoted Comment

Hi, I live here.

You should be able to take your masks off for the ceremony but for lounging on a public beach it needs to be on unless youʻre actively eating/drinking. Hotels and resorts are private property so they arenʻt as harsh about those rules lounging by their pool.