Our Intentional, Italian-Inspired, Rural Hawai’i Wedding

A heart-forward, DIY’d wedding day

To accompany this letter — an abbreviated combination of the playlists we created for our wedding day.

Dear Reader,

Over a warm bowl of saucy, white wine and lemon mussels, at a table for two perched on a blustery, cragged ledge above the stormy Ligurian Sea, I pulled out my small notebook and we sketched down our first visions for our wedding. While the plan for the occasion evolved and contracted and would become more intimate over the coming months, one thing was decided that evening — one thing we knew for sure. The date would be on our tenth anniversary of love. And, as that year would have it, it would be on a Thursday.

Our non-negotiable weekday wedding was the first of many unconventional decisions that resulted in an intentional gathering, true to who we are. Our wedding was as much a ceremony of the deepening of our commitment as it was a festivity of our ten years together and the life we’ve co-created thus far.

Over the year, our planning process was paced in effort to make every decision as thoughtfully as possible. Much of it, in the early stages, happened between customers from my brick and mortar shop. The season before our September twenty-first date, I picked up Priya Parker’s The Art Of Gathering (and these questions)— and it changed everything. Or rather, it refined and affirmed everything. With crystal clarity on our “whys”, we were equipped to make decisions that remained aligned with our intentions (and our budget), and craft the wedding that spoke true to our love and the life we’re creating. Our priority — to gather our nearest and dearests for an intimate, warm, and welcoming celebration of our decade-long love, that centers connection and memory making, and at the end of the night, leaves our guests’ cups and hearts full. Our top three things to invest in (money or time) for crafting this experience — Food. Music. Photos.

The challenge of working within a small budget in actuality supported a more thoughtful gathering that prioritized the quality of the experience and the authenticity of the connections over the stuff. So we leaned into our creativity and handy-skills to create the beautiful scene and experience we’d envisioned.

The natural choice was to host our short list of beloved family, related and chosen, on our land, more specifically in the clearing that — at some time in the future — will be the building site of our home. Our wedding became not only a witnessing and blessing of our union, but also an imbuing of lifetimes of love into the land and our future home.

We greeted our guests upon their arrival, as they made their way through the portal of trees, down the winding path. So many hugs, and there is a wedding album to prove it. To commence, we joined our guests as they drank, ate antipasti, conversed and croqueted together.

A special detail of the day — On our entry altar, our guests were able to read my journal entries from that date ten years prior, when our future began.

An hour in, my sweetheart and I slipped away at sundown for a session with our photographers and for a sacred, private moment of presence before our ceremony. Underneath the branches of the Mother tree, our sister-officiant was gathering the group and priming the circle for our arrival. A precious father strummed and sang an acoustic “Our House”, and at the crest of the portal of trees above, we locked eyes and linked arms, one an anchor for the other, and began our walk down the longest wedding aisle, together, into our circle of loved ones. No wedding party. No formal procession. Just us, enveloped in a ring of people who love us most.

By luminary light, and a loving group effort of carrying chairs and assisting the children and older guests, we all made our way back to the wedding tent. What felt like a mere minute later, the rains came — a wedding day blessing in the islands we call home.

Sourdough heroes hailing from a small Kona mountain town paddled hand-tossed pizzas in and out of a mobile wood-fired oven all night. Local gelato, land-grown limoncello, and our grandmothers’ treasured cookie recipes for dessert. For those not present in flesh, and for those only present in the spirit, we honored and invited and made space.

Lei were bestowed; lei fit for a coronation. A precious friend draped me in tiers of white crown flower and Stephanotis — the Hawaiian Wedding Flower and the one carried by both my Italian grandmother and my aunt on their wedding days. Strands and strands of gathered blossoms, strung one by one. Is there any greater gesture of love?

Offerings were made to one another — from him a written song, from me a hula, as per tradition; both resurrections of beloved practices; public declarations of affection, lovingly crafted and choreographed and rehearsed for this moment. Our attention on one another as our offerings were made was unwavering.

As the skies cleared, the night was bookended with a bonfire, refilling of glasses, late-night slices, and dancing freely with favorite people. Husband in hand, I’m spun around and meet the smiling face of my childhood friend and we then whirl together, laughing, like we have since we were little girls, only now, her infant daughter is strapped to her chest.

With more hugs, it all comes to a close. Our loved ones make their way back through the other side of the portal, hearts full, as are ours, as we’d intended. In our way, as we do, we disassembled the scene with the hands of a few hired (treasured!) friends, all the while still in joy. And as we made our way across the driveway to our then home, loaded to the brim with the leftover foods and flowers that would be shared with our family and friends in the coming days, we slipped out of our attire — the bottoms of my dress and feet stained from the iron-rich soil of our volcanic island — and into the bath where we recounted the day. Come and gone in a flash.

But now, every year on days like today, we get to ask each other, do you remember, the twenty-first night of September?

All photos by Samantha and Josh Arroyo

Pizza catering by Sundog Bread

Flowers grown and supplied by Daisy Dukes Flower Farm