Here dot.coms the bride
• The Wedding Planner's Web log
By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer
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Today, the bride is still weaning herself from the wedding-planning circuit. It's not so much that she can't detach from the dream. She just doesn't want her research to go to waste.
The newlywed Mrs. Susan Bolin Wright works at a New York consulting company and couldn't resist playing the consultant role when she met other brides-to-be on the Internet.
She became part of a whole subculture of Hawai'i brides planning weddings here from far-flung places.
A knot.com message board put her in touch with other New Yorkers in similar situations. She met Jennifer Nestor, another New York consultant, who will wed Paul Ko next month on Maui, even though they have never been there. She also became e-mail pals with Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, a New York fashion writer who will marry Michael Hale at the Kahala Mandarin on Valentine's Day.
For Tan, Honolulu is a good midway point for her family from Singapore, their Mainland friends and her fiancé's mother, who lives in Honolulu. To ease her planning, Tan did a few things she recommends: She hired a wedding planner. She and her fiancé made a trip back here over the summer to nail down some details. And she checks in regularly at theknot.com's message board (for hours at a time) to find reputable sources of everything from flowers to photographers.
"It's good to have this network out there," Tan said. "When you're so far away, you get paranoid."
The NYC Knotties, as they're known on the message board, have even gotten together at a tiki bar in the East Village called Waikiki Wally's.
Not only could they discuss all things romantic (Nestor's fiancé proposed last year during a gondola ride in Venice), but they could discuss all things practical, like the logistics of finding affordable lodging.
"It's a leap of faith, never having seen these places," Nestor said. "For someone with a controlling personality, it's been interesting trying to let things go."
Wright wants to see Nestor through her November nuptials and Tan's in February. After that, she plans to pull out of all of the bride chat and let someone else take over the NYC Knotties.
"I definitely want to see them through," she said. "Maybe it will take on a life of its own."
That sort of thing tends to happen in cyberspace.
Tanya Bricking writes about relationships for The Advertiser.
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Start making the connection Wedding planning can be a click away for long-distance brides looking to tie the knot in Hawai'i. No matter whether you're from here and coming home to wed or looking online for a ceremony/honeymoon combo, it's easy to find someone else in your shoes on these sites:
theknot.com: One message board is specific to Hawai'i (look under "cities"), and it also has boards on topics such as "destination weddings" and "military brides."
ourmarriage.com: This one has a discussion board on topics ranging from picky bridesmaids to eloping.
ultimatewedding.com: You can check out chats like "Etiquette, Schmetiquette" and "Wedding Stress, Vents & Frustrations" or use the computerized countdown to your wedding that ticks it down to the last second.
weddingchannel.com: The Wedding Channel's Hawai'i message board has been a hub for those planning weddings on Maui. New brides-to-be log on daily.
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