In 2008 I began traveling to Maui and fell in love. (Sorry baby) but no it wasn’t with Colt. The love affair was with the Grand Wailea. I fell in love at first site inspection. It was everything I needed in my life and more, the most amazing spa I have ever seen and smelt, views that blew my mind, a breathtaking seaside chapel, pools with endless slides, a rope swing, the world’s only water elevator, hot tub after hot tub and the most beautiful swim up grotto bar with the funniest bartender in the world Rickie Ricardo. It was Disneyland for adults but better. It was the happiest place on Maui and every time you checked out it left you longing for more and wondering when your next date would be. I’ve had the pleasure of staying at the Grand Wailea with some of the best people I know including Colt (several times) my sister, Kristen, Margaret, Eric, Ashleigh & Ashley. I can honestly say some of my fondest memories with these amazing people are the times we spent at the Grand.

Did I mention…I love the Grand?

I can’t tell you how many times I have stayed at the Grand Wailea and dreamt of my wedding.  I have sat in the chapel while mediating and visualizing and would instantly be covered in goosebumps because the amount of spiritual energy in that chapel is out of this world. I remember just recently when one of my best friends Margaret was here visiting we were walking down the beach path and I looked her dead in the eyes and told her “we are going to get married here one day”. As she giggled, I knew she knew I was right.

Bad business:

As Colt and I began to look at places to get married it wasn’t a huge surprise that the Grand Wailea was at the top of our list and even though I knew in my heart it was “the place” to be fair and realistic I had called several different wedding planners, site locations and hotels. Not even a week into dealing with other companies I can honestly say I was quite embarrassed and upset with the lack of professionalism, work ethic and responses. It was like I actually had to chase these people around to take our money!! What was worse, I do this job for a living and if someone calls you to book your location you call them back day of or no later than 24 hours later. This was certainly a huge eye opener in regards to who I will refer my clients to moving forward and who I will not. The lack of work ethic on this island is a joke to say the very least.

Going to the Chapel and we’re going to get married:

One night we went on a sunset walk through Wailea with Kailea and as we were walking by the Grand Wailea we decided to stop in the chapel. To my surprise Colt had always admired the chapel from afar but had never actually been inside! As we walked up to the chapel we were of course blown away by its quaint but fairytale beauty all over again. From the beautiful clock that sits perfectly towards the top, to the bells and immaculate koi pond that makes it look liking it is floating on water you can’t help but be blown away. Once inside the beauty continues to deliver with the cutest little set up that sits about 100 people comfortably. The artistic and cultural stain glass windows radiate the perfect amount of light to make the chapel feel warm. As we stood at the front of the chapel (in the same spot we would be standing as husband and wife) and admired the beauty we could feel the energy sweeping over us and in that instant we just knew, this was it.

Meet our Wedding Angel (aka MaryAnn Bowman)

Since we had walked down to the Grand Wailea on a Saturday evening of course there was no one in the Sales and Marketing office for us to talk to. So we walked to the concierge desk and requested some general information for 2012 weddings. Once Monday rolled around I was anxious to get on the phone and talk to a sales manager. Of course I was hoping and praying on every ring that I would get a better response from the Grand Wailea than anyone else I had come in contact with thus far.  Once on the phone with the wedding department I gave them my “general” information, tentative wedding date, expected amount of people, etc., and then thanked me for my interest and told me that someone would be in contact with me shortly, I hung up the phone crushed and thought here we go again.

Later that day while at work I received my first glimpse of my fairytale coming true via e-mail:

Aloha Ms. Carvalho,

Congratulations on your engagement! The Grand Wailea is absolutely fabulous for weddings and receptions.  It is perfect for honeymooners, and is also a premier destination for friends and family to vacation while attending your nuptials.  The grounds are absolutely stunning, and the overall experience here is unforgettable! I do have your preferred date of Saturday, August 25th, 2012 available for 70 guests at either 3:00pm Lei Aloha Wedding Celebration or a 7pm Candlelight Ceremony.  I can help you create an amazing ceremony in our romantic Seaside Chapel or our lush Chapel Gardens.   I can also assist in selecting a special menu for your Reception and Wedding Dinner, as well as linens, flowers and décor. I have attached some photographs of Chapel Overlook, just one of our most beautiful Wedding Dinner and Reception sites, to think about for your special day.  We also have banquet room space available if you would like your Wedding Dinner indoors. I have attached additional information about our Dream Weddings Promotion for 2012, Wedding Ceremony packages, and also guidelines for Reception Dinners and Private Functions. 

Please let me know if you have any questions. We look forward to being a part of your special day!

 Mahalo nui loa,

MaryAnn M. Bowman

Senior Social Catering Manager

Grand Wailea | A Waldorf Astoria™ Resort

Finally! Someone that gets it! I’m pretty sure she had me at congratulations. I quickly picked up the phone and we talked as if we were long lost friends. She was so helpful and I just knew that I had found the right person to help us make our dream come true!

Site Inspection, December 18^th 2011:

After talking with MaryAnn for about 2 weeks we had set up our first site inspection for December 18^th at 9:00 a.m. I could barely sleep that night as visions of our wedding danced through my head. I couldn’t wait to see if it was really possible, I mean could we really swing getting married at the GRAND? We met MaryAnn in the lobby and she was all that I wanted her to be and more (bubbly, positive, confident, well spoken, pretty, smart and she knew how to hustle, she walked faster than me which is a hard pace to keep). I found myself trying to keep up with her as she marched us all over the hotel and then sat us down insisting on buying us breakfast. She laughed, engaged and asked questions the whole time. She was genuine and invested and she made us feel like we were the only two people at the whole resort. After breakfast she walked us to each location and gave us a visual of our wedding as she pictured it. It was absolutely beautiful and I knew there was no turning back. We left filled with hope, excitement and our fingers crossed that we could somehow make it work in our very tight budget.

Is she for real?

Over the next couple weeks after the site inspection MaryAnn was in contact often. Sometimes she would call 3 or 4 times a day just to keep us in the loop or let us know what she was working on and how she was going to “make this work”. She would call me and tell me how she was going to “cut this cost, or wave this fee, or make this work” she was determined and every time she said was going to do something she came back with a yes and made it happen. One of the main things I expressed to MaryAnn during our site was that even though I LOVED everything about the Grand I was feeling weird about having our ceremony indoors as well as our reception (we live in Maui so of course we wanted to have our reception outside but Maui laws doesn’t allow outside DJ’s in public areas and you can’t have outside noise after 10p.m.) so it left us with the banquet room. And although the banquet room was beautiful it just didn’t flow the way I had hoped for I needed more open air but I figured it was a small sacrifice in the big picture. MaryAnn feeling this pain called me one afternoon with great excitement in her voice she told me that the ballroom was open and wanted to know if we were interested. I explained that even though that would be great it really wouldn’t fit our budget. She quickly said let me worry about that do you want it? I couldn’t believe she was going to try to make it work in our budget so I said I guess we can try. Within a few hours my phone was ringing and my e-mail was dinging and sure as hell she had pulled it off. We were booked for the chapel and the ballroom and it fit right in our budget, I almost dropped dead.