Chris and Jen - North Shore Magic

Now that is a great shot...

THE TALE OF CHRIS AND JEN
and how it all came to be

If you haven't figured it out by now, I mostly work at strange hours, especially as of late. Many days, I just don't burn the midnight oil, I kill the morning rooster and work until it's 11 a.m. For the most part, it works out because my couples who are on the mainland, end up calling me at strange hours anyway because of the timezone difference. Chris was not the exception to the rule. He called me at around 3am in the morning, and was surprised he got someone on the phone.

It was then that Chris and Jen expressed to me their wedding ambitions: to escape to Hawaii, to rent a vacation home, to get married on the beach, and to throw a small dinner for whoever could make it down to Hawaii with them. While I agreed with that it was a great idea, I warned Chris and Jen that we may run into a few problems.

I informed them that vacation rentals here in Hawaii were mostly illegal, even though vacation rentals actually paid a 12% hotel tax to the State to keep in operation (I don't understand that either). Consequently, vacation rental owners tried to keep a vacationers presence a secret, so the community wouldn't report them to the State. This mean that owners forbade any type of gathering on their property: whether it would be for a wedding reception or a birthday party.

In the still of the night

Now here's what I truly don't understand about the state's law banning weddings to small wedding dinners on a private properties. First of all, what is the difference between a birthday party, a dinner, and a dinner for a small wedding party of ten? None. Why is a wedding party singled out and classified as "illegal?" I can understand that a LARGE wedding reception would possibly violate the maximum allowed fire-code occupancy for a residential property. But doesn't that fire-code only apply to commercial properties? I can also understand that large weddings with a DJ could violate a noise ordinance. But small dinners don't have DJ's, just a chef. So why should a small dinner, not truly a reception, be considered illegal in Hawaii? Is it illegal to hire a chef? Don't celebrities do that all the time?

I did forward Chris a few vacation rentals that were willing to skirt the law, and Chris did some research on his own. He ended up finding a few vacation rentals that were amusing, but turned them down when he found out that the owners monitored the vacation rental with web cameras. The vacation rental owners claim that they did this to make sure renters did not throw any parties. But past history throughout the world has proven otherwise as compromising videos of couples, magically appeared on websites provided by vacation rental owners. I mean come on...web cameras to monitor your vacation rental? Give me a break. Isn't that a violation of your right to privacy? Just imagine if hotel rooms installed webcams in your room? Seesh.

Everything went perfect on their wedding day

I told Chris bluntly, to just rent a vacation rental, that of course, would not be monitored by webcams, and throw your wedding and small dinner anyway. Having relatives in the police force in Hawaii, I was informed by them that, they, the police, had never shut down a wedding or dinner, especially if it consisted of just a small handful of people and they kept to themselves.

Chris agreed with my plan of action, and after a month or so he found a vacation rental he liked, and booked it. It was smooth sailing from there on out.

Their first kiss as husband and wife

So we didn't get the normal Hawaii sunset, but we still got great pictures

I honestly think Chris and Jen have movie star looks.

And that little yellow dot is our sunset shot...

Chris and Jen's North Shore Wedding from Steven Young on Vimeo.

Everything on their wedding day went together well. Reverend Elias Parker gave a great Hawaii Wedding. The beaches were clear, the mood was romantic, it was great. The only bummer was the weather, which wasn't clear, so I really couldn't get an awesome sunset shot. But other than that everything turned out pretty much perfect.

Shot on my Canon G10

Another Canon G10 shot.

For dinner, Chris and Jen went with my referral and booked Chef Elmer Guzman. Chef Elmer is the BEST chef in Hawaii in my non-humble opinion. He's worked as an executive chef for many of the famous chefs you see on tv, and many of the chefs in Hawaii. Just recently, his store, Poke-Stop, was featured on the food network. In fact, Elmer was filming that episode before he came to Chris and Jen's wedding to cook.

Chef Elmer, hard at work



I'm not sure which dish this was, but it looked awesome


Dining outdoors in style.

Cameo appearance by my lighting stand in the background...haha.

So just how did these two star-destined couples meet? I'd love to tell you the story, but there's nothing like hearing it directly from the bride. Here is Jen, unedited:

"Chris and I actually met online, although at the beginning we used to tell people we met at the gym since we were embarrassed about being on a dating website...LOL. But we've since come out of the "closet" with that since people started accepting the whole online thing in recent years. We started chatting online in early December 2004, and then we starting talking on the phone. After about a month, we decided to meet at a little coffee shop in between our houses. It was pouring rain that day, and I hate rain so I was annoyed, and the town we met in has bad parking, so I was annoyed about that too. But once we met in person, grabbed some coffee and started talking, it was all history from there. He made me laugh like no other. I wasn't sure about him the first couple of dates, and I had to make sure he wasn't a serial killer, but by about date #3, I knew he was "the one". The funny thing is, he is the first guy I met in person through any online dating service (and the last!) After our first few dates, I canceled my dating website membership and never looked back. We have led a nontraditional path...moving in together, having our first child in April 2008, getting married in Hawaii October, 2009 and now our second little one due in June of this year, but it's all been an amazing ride. We are looking forward to creating the large family that we both never had and eventually retiring to somewhere sunny & beautiful where we can relax and drink lots of good red wine. That's all we really want out of life."

I don't know about you, but does Chris look like a serial killer? Haha. Hey, but you never know these dayst? Jen's right about the entire meeting online thing these days. There are SOoooo many couples meeting online. And, as you can see, it's not just reserved for nerds.

A little photo art I made at their house when I had some time to kill.



More photo art


Chris making sure that he ordered a wedding cake



Geez, it looks as though they are going to be nice to each other.



Nope. Not nice.



For some reason, I hear "Once Again" by Frankie Jordan when I see this picture.

On the day Chris and Jen tied the knot, I had two other weddings. My day began at 7am, and ended somewhere around 11pm. Luckily, I had a great assistant to help me get throughout that entire day. I don't usually have an assistant for my weddings, but for crazy days such as this, it really helps. This body is not made to work for more than 2 hours at a time...haha.

My final comments about Chris and Jen? I'm just glad to have met a cool couple such as these two. They have one kid already and another on the way. I could already tell, just by the way they treat each other, that they'll end up being great parents as well.

Chris, Jen, I wish you my best,


Steve Young
The Hawaii Wedding Report
http://www.dreamweddingshawaii.com