“How we met is kinda unique. 7 years ago I was working as a nanny in Rome, Italy and Tom was stationed in Naples, Italy with the Navy. He came up to Rome with friends on St. Patricks Day and we met on a sort of ‘pub crawl’ that my friends worked for. We exchanged information and he called me a few days later to say he heard there was a good Indian restaurant in Rome. So, he came up to to see me and we went out on our first date! There were many more dates and many more trips to follow. I would go down to Naples, he would come up to Rome. We got to travel together and experience the country. We kept in touch and he came to visit me when he could. When his tour ended there, he got orders to go to Connecticut. I moved there as well and we stayed there for 3 years and then he got orders to go to Hawaii ~ like we had hoped for!! We did a cross-country road-trip with our dog in tow from Connecticut to California. He proposed at our last stop, San Diego, before we flew to Hawaii. When it came to picking a wedding date, it was pretty easy to decide… it had to be St. Patricks Day. And my favorite color is green so that was a bonus! It was truly a perfect day… marrying my best friend on the day we met 7 years later with our favorite people there to be a part of it.” – Samantha, the bride

I absolutely adore all of Tom + Samantha’s beautiful DIY projects!!! From this gorgeous Italy shaped string art to their creative table numbers… these two have the crafty gift ~ which we love! To hear more about all their projects, read the brides interview below.

“Do I have to pick just one? My favorite wedding day memory would be seeing the look on Tom’s face as I walked down the aisle and when he read his vows…

..Yes, we did quite a bit of DIY projects! Tom was awesome and made our amazing wedding sign. He really put so much time into it to make it just right. It came out great! I also found some programs that I liked on a wedding website and decided to recreate those as well. That was probably the most time consuming project for me. For our centerpieces, we ordered some wooden boxes from Etsy and Tom drew the table numbers on them. I also did the menus with craft paper and printed them. For our guest table assignments, we found a frame at Pier 1 that looked like an old window with six spaces and wrote a table number with the guests in each space. For our guest favors, we found some green and yellow flip flops at Target…dollar bin! …and tied them with ribbon. I painted some signs that said ‘Kick off your shoes, relax, and take some aloha with you!’ and we found some wicker baskets at Ross to put them in. Also for the centerpieces, we gave our florist old liquor/wine jars to use to give it a more rustic look. Oh, also one of my favorite finds were St.Pattie’s day straws from target…I was sold when I saw the Leprechaun mustaches!

..Yes, my something new was my dress. My something old was my ring, it’s vintage 1930s. My something blue was my garter and my something borrowed was a pin that my mom found with a picture of my dad and I when I was in preschool. We have St.Pattie’s Day badges on… so perfect since our wedding was on St. Patricks day!

..If you plan on doing DIY projects for your wedding, start early. I thought I gave myself enough time but when I got started, I realized that some of the projects were more time consuming than I had anticipated! Enlist family and friends if you can!

photographer: Christina Heaston // location: Kualoa Ranch, Moli’i Garderns // florist: our neighbor Ram Pascua of ‘White Lotus Flowers’ // coordinator: Melissa Veenstra from “Let’s Do This” // rentals: Royal Party Rentals // catering: Off-Menu // cake: Nixon Diabolos from ‘Madcakez‘ // hair and makeup: Flaunt Makeovers // officiant: Piula Ala’ilima // transportation: Cloud Nine // brides dress: David’s Bridal, alterations done at ‘Bijou Bridal’-Honolulu // bride’s hairpieces: Lo Boheme via Etsy // men’s attire: Nordstrom Rack