Hawaii Wedding Tips

If you’re planning on having an island style wedding in Hawaii, you’re probably looking to save a few dollars. Did you know you can end up spending thousands on dinnerware along for your wedding? That’s one place to start!

If you’re having an island style wedding here in Hawaii and you the wedding is outside, actually, especially if the wedding is outside, why spend all that extra money on dishes, silverware, and glasses? You have spend money on their use, and then you have to spend money on having someone clean them.

If you’re using a caterer who won’t take the price of the silverware and dishes out of their meal cost then you’re kinda stuck. But if you’re using someone who will you might be able to save a bundle.

Simply going to Costco or Sam’s Club, buying a bulk set of plates and silverware, all plastic, can save lot’s. We suggest getting dark plastic, thick plates. One’s that survive cutting. Regular plastic forks and knives. Plane paper napkins. And plastic cups. Most bar services will use plastic eventually once they run out of glass so why not just start out with plastic.

Plus, if you’re outside, no one’s going to notice. They’ll be too sidetracked by how beautiful the surroundings are.

Need an Island Style Menu for your Hawaii Wedding? You can check out Cater Hawaii for ideas. They have tons of menus fo you to choose from. It’s a great resource. If you don’t want to go with them you don’t have to but at least you can start getting ideas to make your Hawaii wedding a great one.

Here’s one of their sample buffet menus.

Salads
* Spicy Pacific Caesar In Lumpia Cup With Crisp Noodles OR
* Upcountry Greens With Roasted Red Peppers,
* Grilled Pineapple With Guava Dressing OR
* Wok Seared Ahi, Thai Green Papaya Baby Greens
* Ginger-Lime Dressing OR
* Peking Duck Soba, Plum Dressing

Entrees
* Grilled Fish, Grilled Vegetables
* Tomato-Basil Lime Dressing OR
* Island Style Steamed Fish (Fresh Caught), Shiitake
* Mushrooms, Ginger-Scallion Sauce With Jasmine Rice Medley Of Island Vegetables OR
* Grilled Island Fish, Tropical Fruit Relish With An Array Of Grilled Vegetables

Dessert
* Lilikoi Tart
* Kona Coffee Cheesecake
* Chocolate Decadence

The latest craze in buffet style catered weddings is the use of food stations rather than a buffet line. Rather than having your wedding guests line up with plates in their hands and having to wait through grandma and grandpa getting their food you can have several food stations to spread out the flow and keep people moving around.

In a traditional buffet tables are called, lines are formed and people usually end up waiting for up to an hour to get their food. Why put your guests through that. They’re there for two things, food and alcohol. And some just for the food.

Food stations at weddings usually consist of 3-5 serving tables and split up the types of food. Normally a pre-plated salad and bread station so guests can move quickly through that portion of the line. Then there are several main course tables so people can choose which to have without waiting through all the mess of a long line.

Some suggestions for an island style food station setup are…

Table 1:
Mango and Greens Salad
Assorted Fruit
Several Kinds of Bread

Table 2:
A Fish Dish - Usually fried right there Mahi Mahi is a good fish that everyone likes
Rice

Table 3:
Carving Station with a meat
Vegetable of some sort, asparagus is good

Table 4:
Pasta - Create your own would be a blast but might slow down the line

Table 5:
Chicken Dish
Rice or Bread
Vegetable

With this type of setup you can get smaller portions of each and people just have to choose what they want without having to wait through the whole line.

If you’re looking for a both a great place to have a reception on the island of Oahu as well as a caterer that can bring you great food, and a lot of it, then Creations in Catering might have what you’re looking for.

Creations in Catering has the exclusive to catering at the Dole Cannery located in Honolulu. They are able to do exclusive receptions at in the ballroom at the Dole Cannery and can provide everything you need to make your Hawaii Wedding rock. They also have access to many more great places and can do private houses as well.

My fiance and I had contacted Creations in Catering as one of our first catering choices for our wedding up in Ka’a'awa, Oahu, Hawaii. From their website they looked like they were reasonably priced and that we would be able to fit them into our private residence Hawaii wedding. So we made an appointment and met up with one of their reps.

We headed down to the Dole Cannery, where their offices are in Honolulu, just off Nimitz behind City Mill. The Cannery is super nice and the ballroom even nicer. They were setting up for some highschool dance or something.

We were able to watch a movie about their catering (sweet late 80’s early 90’s style movie) and see what they could do. We were also given price sheets and discussed one on one with a rep what we were looking for and what they might be able to provide on the catering side. They then take what you think you want, food choices, setup, price range, etc and meet up with their chef and planner to see if they can fit a menu to your liking.

Now we could have gone with a straight buffet off their pre-designed menus and payed between $25 and $35 a plate. However, we decided to see if they would be able to cater a food station type wedding which raised the cost. Even on the low end, a food station menu was about $45 when all was said and done. (off site we found out is always more expensive)

I could list their menu’s here but they are really extensive, they have all the food you could ever want and more and their chefs can probably come up with anything you can think of.

If you want a great place for a reception and good food I would suggest Creations in Catering on Oahu and the Dole Cannery.