The impetuous for this blog is our desire to share with everyone the events that led up to our September 3^rd wedding. Yes, we said wedding. This will be a shock to many of you as we kept this a secret until well after it occurred. We're sorry to have kept the secret from you.

We finally decided to tie the knot and we did it Hawaiian style. To make a long story short, it was amazing. Our only regret is that we weren’t able to have our family and friends share in the experience, but we hope that this web page provides a few details of our memorable trip.

On August29th, I proposed to Chantal while we were packing.

^{I was both too nervous to wait any longer and fearful that she was onto me. As you can see by the video, she said yes.}

^{It has been disclosed to me from various sources that there were a bunch of betting pools out there regarding the exact nature of our trip to Hawaii.You were all wrong: Chantal did not know about a potential elopement – nothing was planned. When asked if she still wanted to embark on our previous plan of eloping, she emphatically said yes. So, we stopped gushing and finished packing for our 4AM departure.}

^{Anyone who has been married knows the reason why a couple would want to elope. Being one of the last of my friends to tie the knot, there were just too many reasons not to have a big “mainland” wedding.}

^{Over the next few days, we talked about how we wanted to get married. We had originally planned on getting married on Kauai, but we weren’t sure how we were going to do it. Our only requirements were to have it be informal, in a private location and only have us, a minister and a photographer at the site.}

^{Chantal’s only real stress was finding a dress. She didn’t want to where one of her many black cocktail dresses so on the second day in Maui she went to a shop by the hotel and found three potential dresses that she loved – all for 20% off and under $60.}

^{Regardless of where we were getting married, we knew we had to get a marriage license. This allows us to actually get married by a minister. No blood work, no counseling, no nothing other than $60 cash and 30 minutes filling out paperwork at Gold Fantasy.}

^{On our 3rd day in Maui, we moved to the Hyatt from the Westin. Our only reason for doing this was we weren’t allowed to stay at the Westin any longer for free (Starwoods points are the only way to travel). Fortunately, this transfer turned out to be a perfect move as the Hyatt completely took care of us as near-newlyweds.}

^{At the Maui Hyatt we quickly learned that our gorgeous corner suite had a helipad above it. The main highway from Maui had to be closed down due to roadside brush fires. This meant that a bunch of people needed to be flown from the Hyatt to the airport. After seeing (and hearing) how cool it was to be flown from the roof of the Hyatt, we contacted the concierge to see if they could arrange a marriage over the next few days.}

^{Fortunately, Gael (with Expedia.com Concierge – yes, more internet) answered the phone when we called. Over the next few hours, she worked miracles and got us a helicopter, a remote bluff overlooking the ocean, a Hawaiian minister, a photographer and, as a bonus, a ministers brother who worked the video camera. This all occurred Friday afternoon with all the activities occurring Sunday. By 6PM Friday, Gael sent us on our way with assurances that everything would be taken care off. With that, we planned our day trip to Hana for all day Saturday.}

^{Our trip to Hana turned out to be our own little pre-wedding day celebration. We drove around the whole island and luckily made it back in one piece to prepare for our wedding day.}

^{Sunday turned out to be a very relaxing day even considering all that was ahead. We woke early (as was the case for the entire trip) and did our daily workout. We then gorged ourselves at the buffet, swam in the pool and even got a couple loads of laundry done. Surprisingly, there was no stress to be had by either of us – exactly as we had hoped for.}

^{It took Chantal a grand total of 45 minutes to get ready. As you can she, she looked amazing. No salon, no pedicure, no elaborate make-up, no nothing, as she still managed to surprise me with her all-natural beauty. This was about the time that we had our second tearful moment.}

^{Gael called us at this point and told us the helicopter we had just heard land was ready for us. We grabbed our rings, marriage certificate and cameras and headed up the stairs to the roof.}

^{This is where we met Al, our helicopter pilot. Al briefed us and quickly put Chantal’s flying fears at ease with his corny sense of humor. Without much ado, we took off from the roof and headed for the opposite side of the mountain. Needless to say, seeing the island and ceremony site by air was amazing and a treat that was beyond what we had hoped for.}

^{As for the location of our ceremony – wow! We landed at the edge of the mountain and then walked down to a little area overlooking the water. This is where we met our minister. He was extremely funny, perfectly informal and somehow managed to say exactly what we had hoped for, all without any briefing as to what were our expectations.}

^{As you can see, it was an emotional ceremony (me rubbing tears away in the picture below). Again, it couldn’t have been more perfect. Considering all the things that could have gone wrong, it’s not entirely clear as to how everything went off without a hitch.}

^{Following the ceremony, we signed our certificate, had our witnesses sign, took some photos, and then headed back to Al for a tour of Maui and ultimately our return home. Our evening concluded with an exceptional dinner at the hotel where we were again treated like superstars at the start of our honeymoon.}

^{For those that made it this far, thank you for reading. Again, we are sorry that none of you knew about this until well after it occurred, but hopefully everyone understands our reasoning for keeping it a secret.}

^{For those that aren’t married yet, we can emphatically say that this is an exciting, memorable and fulfilling way to commit to one another. OK, enough with the sappiness.}