why Kauai?

After our engagement, we spent a few months simply being engaged, enjoying the smiles, the joy, the peace of knowing what we share. With the autumn came the time to start our wedding planning in earnest.

We had long since established that we had a shared vision: something small and intimate, a celebration with our closest family and friends, the sound of laughter – our own and others’, something outside, in sight of water.

With the decision to be outside, we either needed to choose somewhere in the tropics or get married in the summer if it was a seasonal location.

Right away we decided not to get married in the Seattle/Bellevue area. While it is our home of choice, neither of us have family here, and we were concerned that the event would become simply a large party, taking away from the sacred reason for the celebration.

And haven’t we all been to enough weddings where we hardly know anybody, and we don’t get more than five minutes with the bride and groom? We wanted something different.

So, do we decide when or where first? The conversations really took place side by side. We wanted to give our long distance guests enough time to plan for the trip, so it wasn’t going to work to make it too soon. Making people fly during the winter or over the holidays didn’t seem kind either.

Okay, not holidays, not winter, not too soon. We also wanted to make it easy for the students and those with children to make the trip. That made it either spring break or summer. As spring break is not at the same time around the country, we looked at summer.

That looked awfully far away from last autumn.

Now – where? Many locations came up: Ireland, a ruined castle in Wales, Victoria BC, and others. We even thought of a barefoot ceremony in the redwood forest in Northern California. No water, you say? Have you ever been to the redwood forest? While there may be no large body of water, there are streams aplenty, and the mist is a constant presence, even in summer.

Ed’s mother has limited comfort with travel, and we hoped she and Ed’s father could be with us for the ceremony. Even though we didn’t want to get married in Pennsylvania, we were creative – we brainstormed sites in driving distance from the farm that might feel right for us.

We looked at Prince Edward Island (in maritime Canada) and old mansions in South Carolina. We even considered getting married on the Queen Elizabeth 2, during the crossing between New York and Southampton, England.

None of these was quite right.

Our first holiday together was in Kauai. Neither of us had been there before, and we had each heard that it was beautiful, quiet, private, relatively undeveloped, relaxed. That was an apt description for the vacation we needed at the time.

From the moment we landed, every sense lit up. The open walls of the airport let in the soft, fragrant tropical breeze, a warm scent that seems to permeate the whole island. Every arrival since has echoed that first one: once clear of baggage claim, we stop in our tracks, close our eyes, and inhale deeply. Oh, how we love Kauai!

Shortly before that first trip Ed bought an earlier edition of the Ultimate Kauai Guidebook, and we each spent time with it on the plane ride over. What a gift! The book helped us find many things we would have otherwise missed. We explored as much of the island as we could fit into a week, while also making time to relax and enjoy the easy way we have in each other’s company. We left with one certainty.

We would be back.

And we have been. Several times. Each trip we find new things to love about the island, and we visit again our favourite spots. We have not nearly run out of things to do there, or ways to relax and enjoy the special feeling the island inspires. This is a soul place for us. We often talk of finding a way to spend longer there – maybe we’ll move there to write our great novels.

Most of the places we considered for getting married had something about them that wasn’t quite right. We had thought of Kauai initially, but turned away from it as we knew it would be out of reach for Ed’s mother. As it became clear that traveling to any of the places on our short list would prove too difficult for Phyllis, we realized that we must choose the place that our hearts are drawn to.

Kauai.

Ahhhhh... There was great peace in that decision. And also sadness, as we knew it meant that Ed’s parents would not be joining us for the wedding. They will certainly be with us in spirit, and we know how happy they are for us.

That still left us with the need to pick a summer date. One Sunday last fall, waking up from a snooze, Ed said into the dim light of the room, “How about the seventh of July? Then it would be 7/7/07… and I would never forget our anniversary.” I could hear the grin in his voice, and he earned a thump for that one. At first I thought it was unbearably corny, but the idea grew on me, and I liked the pattern of it.

Apparently, so did a lot of other people. As we called around to check with photographers and other vendors, as well as potential sites for the ceremony and reception, we found that most of our choices were already long-since booked. We decided to move our date away from the press of the crowd, and looked a couple of weeks out.

The ceremony is set for the early evening of Friday 20 July. All of our guests will be on the island together for several days. We intend to enjoy plenty of time with each of them. And we hope that they will meet and enjoy each other also, so that by Friday evening, we will all be great friends.

Having our wedding in a place that has such significance for us feels right. We will return to the island again and again, and in doing so, we will remember our vows and those who witnessed them. Thank you for sharing this journey with us.