I am celebrating a milestone this evening. I performed wedding number 1500! It is hard for me to believe that I have prayed the prayers and pronounced 1500 couples man and wife. It was a very special wedding. There were 40 guests at Kumukea Beach at the Four Seasons Hualalai. Almost everyone was from Japan. The pianist who played as the bride walked the aisle is a concert pianist who was flown in from NYC named Eric. He was really cool. Everyone had a white orchid lei on their chair. The arch where we stood was covered in white flowers. Everything was so beautiful. The bride cried and cried. It took her make up artist several minutes to redo her after the ceremony. I am truly grateful to all the couples, hotels, wedding coordinators, photographers/videographers, musicians, banquet servers and other team members with whom I have had the privilege to work. I am especially grateful to God who has allowed me the wonderful honor of standing on the shore as the sun sets over the Pacific Ocean and everyone tears up at the wonder of God’s gift of love and family.

My wife is a kindergartner teacher. Every year her school does the most wonderful May Day Program. This year the program opened with the children singing the doxology in Hawaii. It was so beautiful, I started crying. Each class comes to the front, says a prayer and then performs a song or hula. The last performance was to one of my favorite songs, “You Dance Over Me”. After all the performances each child lines up to put their lei on the cross to honor the King. The entire program overwhelmed me. Every year I am so inspired by the keikis. I wanted to post a few photos because I’ll be inspired by the program for a long time to come.

 

Brian discreetly approached me after I had performed his friend’s wedding and said, “I would like to do a renewal of vows with my wife while we are on the island, but she doesn’t know anything about it”. Without anyone knowing, we set the whole thing up in a matter of minutes. The next evening, Brian and Lynelle were walking hand in hand at Waialea Bay (Puako beach 69). When Lynelle saw me, she looked very dazed and confused. She knew right then that something was going on. Brian dropped to one knee and asked her to marry him again. They had only been married a little more than a year. You don’t have to wait 5 years, 10 years or 20 years to celebrate your love with a special romantic moment!