Parasol Events

Working with Parasol Events, (specifically Laura-​Ann Lewis) was the foundation for our successful wedding. We interviewed several other wedding planners along with Laura, but were immediately drawn to her. We could not have made a better decision!
Over the course of almost a year, Laura helped us (guided us, really!) in developing, planning, and ultimately executing our dream wedding! Laura is everything you want in a wedding planner, and more. She is meticulous, thorough, experienced, and has an incredible eye for detail. She has outstanding design sense and style, and can easily provide design guidance to match the individual client’s unique preferences. Early on, we brainstormed with Laura about our potential thoughts and ideas on design, and a few days later — Laura provided us with an «inspiration board» that completely captured the design we were going for (even though we weren’t sure what it was ourselves!) In addition, almost all the vendors we ultimately selected (florist, entertainment, photography) were per Laura’s recommendations — and they were outstanding! For the couple that didn’t know what we wanted, and didn’t know what we needed to do — Laura was perfect!
If that weren’t enough — Laura is an absolute pleasure to work with! She is extremely well-​organized, and so easy to talk to! Laura always made herself available, and constantly invited us to contact her by e-​mail or phone if we needed to (even when she went on vacation!) We never felt pressured or forced into anything. One of the most satisfying aspects of our wedding, was the fact that we had no regrets about any of our decisions! This was a testament to Laura’s outstanding planning, because we had all the time and information to explore every possible option — from our venue, to our entertainment, to our menu, to our design!
About one month from our wedding date, the venue that we had selected for our wedding changed ownership overnight. The «Waikiki EDITION» hotel, formerly owned and operated by Marriott, suddenly became the «Modern Honolulu,» and was now operated by Aqua Resorts. This, of course, caused us a great deal of concern, as we weren’t sure what this meant for our wedding! Laura expertly handled the situation, immediately contacting the new management and confirming our wedding was still intact! She even made some calls and tentatively prepared a plan B at a different hotel, in the event that we needed to switch venues!
When it comes down to it — we placed our complete trust and faith in Laura and essentially asked her to tell us what we needed to do to make our dream wedding a reality. Laura went above and beyond our expectations, and we could not have done it without her!

I cannot say enough wonderful things about Laura! Me and my now hubby were extremely not knowing when it came to all things wedding. Add to that we tend to be a pretty laid back pair and while the idea of a wedding planner had clear appeal since we knew diddly squat about how to create the event we wanted, we were also concerned about having some type A tyrant calling the shots & running the show.
Laura took the time to get to know us, both in terms of our personality and in what we wanted for our wedding. She gave us lots of advanced warning about decisions that were coming down the pike, keeping us on track and gently nudging us when a decision needed to be made, but we were dragging our feet. For all the details she gave us wonderful options and we ended up with the best vendors ever! Not only that, she made us aware of details we would otherwise not have thought of, reassuring us that we did not have to do these things, but also wanting to make sure that we had the celebration we wanted with no regrets. Laura was awesome at communication, available and responsive, exceptionally organized, and warm and friendly the whole way through.
When the big day came, neither one of us were worried about any detail of our special day. Our wedding was exactly the celebration we wanted it to be and so much of that is thanks to Laura.

We were very disappointed with Alia’s lack of professionalism throughout the planning process and on our wedding day. Not only did she not pay attention to important details such as vendor balances, she took the liberty to change around the schedule of events during our banquet before consulting us. Without a doubt, I would never recommend Alia or Laura even if their services were free. During the planning process, she made it more difficult than if we had planned the wedding on our own. We depended on her to be reliable on the day of our wedding and on many occasions, she was unavailable or hard to find. Also, she gave out an incorrect cell phone number to our wedding party. At a certain point, we just gave up expecting anything from her.

Wow, I can’t believe that no one has written a review for Parasol Events! Perhaps Unilocal is not as popular in Hawaii?
In any event, I am honored to be the first reviewer for this wonderful event planning company. I can really only give testament, however, to my wonderful wedding consultant, Alia Kennedy.
To give some background, my husband (who is originally from Hawaii) and I live in San Francisco, but wanted to get married on Oahu because most of his family lives there, and my family lives in Korea. Hawaii was the logical location. In addition, though it might seem strange, it was actually cheaper for us to have a wedding in Hawaii than in San Francisco.
Because we were planning our wedding from across the Pacific, we wanted to make sure to have a reliable and detail-​oriented wedding consultant who had connections to various vendors on the island. We were also interested in someone who could share and expand upon our vision of the type of wedding we wanted. With Alia, we got just that.
Alia had wonderful recommendations of what to splurge on, what not to spend too much money on, what guests find most memorable, etc. She was and is a wedding consultant extraordinaire. She also dealt with my husband and me very well. We are a neurotic and perfectionist couple (yes, my husband was very into the wedding planning as well), and she was always gracious whenever our nerves got the best of us.
My wedding day couldn’t have been more perfect. As the bride, I didn’t have a single worry as to the coordination and flow of the wedding. I trusted in Alia to make the day progress seamlessly. Alia delivered.
I could not recommend Parasol Events, or more importantly, Alia Kennedy, more highly.