Oh, what a beginning! It started with a dream. I wanted someone in my life to share my passion for life and for travel, then came Christopher and a summer wedding. We fell in love and had a fairy tale wedding in a 19th century stone church in Maui. It is a story that can make even the most hardened of hearts cry tears of “oh, isn’t that sweet”. In the beginning, we were on a date in Maui. The date was an adventurous one and it was going perfectly well. We were climbing up rivers to waterfalls, over rocks and up trees to get spectacular views, we watched the sunset while floating arm in arm in the seven sacred pools and we visited a small church along the Hana Highway. I said a prayer in that church and asked God to bless this relationship if it was meant to be, and it was. Christopher asked me to marry him four months later. I said, “Yes, yes, yes” and we agreed to get married in the same small church in which I said the prayer.

But, plans changed when we invited 40 of our friends and family to Hawaii and we thought it would be too much to ask for our guests to drive 17 miles out on the extremely twisty Hana Highway. So, we changed our plans to get married on the Beach at Wialea. We found a pastor, a photographer and a restaurant overlooking the sea, aptly named the Sea Watch, for the reception. The invitations were sent, months passed and as we were all in Hawaii the “Big” day was only four days away. Chris and I, plus our entire gang of guests were on a sightseeing caravan on the Hana Highway. At mile 17, we were at Keanae Town and I was standing in the stone church where I had talked to God. At that moment, I said to my Auntie Pat, “this is it, this is the place I wanted to be married, but we changed it so everyone wouldn’t have to drive so far.” She said some words that changed the most important day of my life… “Honey, you could have gotten married here, we would have all come”. I still had three days to go before the wedding.

I said nothing to Christopher until the next day, Thursday. Then I melted down, and said I did not want to marry him on the beach. I wanted us to be married in that church on Saturday. Thursday night was our respective bachelor and bachelorette parties, and Friday morning we, and the entire group of 40, were getting together at the summit of Mt Haleakala for sunrise. Now it was Friday morning, we had only gotten three hours of sleep due to the parties and the fact that we had to get up at 3:00 a.m. to get to the summit for sunrise. The sunrise was breathtaking, infinite hues of gold and pink bouncing over the horizon in the chilly morning. Now it was time to drive to the other side of the island to find the pastor of the little stone church on the Keanae peninsula. Down the winding road of Mt. Haleakala and over to twisting and sometimes treacherous Hana Highway to the church we went. We found out from Auntie Sandy by the banana bread stand that the pastor was out delivering Poi and would not be back until 8:00 p.m., but then he had a “men’s ministry” that would not be over until late. Now, we only had 24 hours ‘til our wedding. The good news was that Auntie Sandy owns the Church. We told her our story of the granted prayer in her church and Sandy granted us permission to be married in the Church, Saturday. But, we needed to talk to the Pastor to see if he would perform the ceremony. Sandy gave us the pastor’s phone number, we left him a detailed message and then we had to go to a Luau with the whole group of our guests back in Lahaina.

At 11:00 o’clock Friday night, just as we were driving home from the Luau, our cell phone rang. It was Pastor John, he agreed to perform the ceremony, if we met with him for a _ hour of counsel before the wedding. We were bursting with excitement and called everybody on our list and changed the time and location of our wedding the next day, from 5:00 at Wialea Beach to 3:00 at the Lanakila Church in Keanae.

It was as perfect as it could be. The church was decorated with tropical flowers, compliments of my mother in law, Mary. All of our closest family and friends were inside to share this moment. My long romantic white dress trailing behind as I walked down the isle meeting eyes with my one true love. As we said our vows, Christopher brought himself, the guests and the pastor to tears as he said “he promised to be the man my parents would have wanted for me” as their spirits sat in the front row.