This may not necessarily be directly related to Maui weddings, Maui wedding videos or webcasts, but in some way our attending this weekend’s TEDx event at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center (MACC) may just help change Maui weddings afterall.

Here is the event description:

TEDxMaui is an independently organized TED event. In the spirit of “ideas worth spreading,” this all-day event will present innovative and inspiring speakers and performers who have the courage to dream and change the world with revolutionary ideas. TEDxMaui is an opportunity to broaden understanding and knowledge in our community. Attendees will hear new ways of thinking, learn about break-throughs and be motivated by those accelerating innovation and improving the lives of citizens around the world. The goal is to have each person walk away feeling enlightened, motivated and dedicated to making a difference in their lives as well as the lives of others. Guest speakers include Elizabeth Lindsey, Art Medeiros, Pualani Kanaka‘ole Kanahele, W.S. Merwin, Byron Washom and Susan Casey.

We’re always looking for ways to better ourselves as individuals, our art and craft, and to hone our technological edge. Attending seminars like this aims to help us in this mission. Who knows, we may need to enhance our Maui wedding mission statement by the time Sunday is through!

You will be able to tune into the live webcast of the event right here…

TedX Live Webcast (not an example of a Maui Weddings Webcast)

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I just received as a good news as any Maui wedding professional can receive. WeddingWire.com has awarded Live Maui Webcasts and DVD the 2012 Bride’s Choice Award! That means we’ve received the best reviews from past brides and grooms and are in the top 5 percentile of thousands and thousands of WeddingWire professionals.

We are honored to receive this recognition and take it as validation of the Maui wedding work we do and the people we serve. As outlined in our Maui wedding mission statement, we focus our service attention on:

• our brides and grooms;
• their viewing audience;
• our wedding coordinators;
• our video team.

Maui wedding Ohana: Thank you!

We love our work and do the best we can every day to spread happiness, creativity, reliability and value to people’s lives.

How are the WeddingWire.com Bride’s Choice Award winners determined?
The WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards ™ recognizes the top local wedding professionals from the WeddingWire Network that demonstrate excellence in quality, service, responsiveness and professionalism. Unlike other awards in which winners are selected by the organization, the WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ are awarded solely based on the reviews from over 1.2 million newlyweds. Awards are determined by a combination of four factors: Overall rating (quality), total number of reviews (quantity), review performace from 2011 (recency), and consistency of reviews from year to year (consistency). This year’s recipients represent the top 5% of WeddingWire’s vendor community, across all service categories and all regions throughout the US and Canada.

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On Monday, January 1st, 2012, Hawaii gives same-sex and opposite-sex couples filing for Hawaii civil unions many of the same rights and responsibilities as married couples. It is only the 7th state in the union to have signed such a measure into law.

“Here in Hawaii, we do not let our diversity divide us. It indeed defines us.” Governor Neil Abercrombie

For the record, Live Maui Webcasts and DVD fully supports this bill and the idea that all people should have the right to love whomever they want and to pursue their own sense of peace and fulfillment in union with another adult. We also support and have found it long overdue that the law recognizes this right.

Governor Neil Abercrombie signs the Hawaii Civil Unions Bill

We have many friends who are in committed and loving relationships with partners of the same sex and we have also shot many commitment ceremonies of same-sex couples. Their expressions of love are as true and present as any opposite-sex couples’ weddings we have witnessed and worked (I got married to my wife Kazuko in 2009 on Maui). Notions that somehow gay marriage in Hawaii or the Hawaii Civil Unions bill undermines or hurts our social fabric seem ill-conceived and baseless. To the contrary if you ask me: unequal treatment of same-sex couples feels hurtful and hateful.

Hawaii Civil Unions Legal: Now What?

You will need to apply for a Civil Union license with the Department of Healthy just like you would for a marriage license. We have done some digging and it seems the official website https://civilunion.ehawaii.gov is not working. The only official information we could find is here: http://hawaii.gov/health/vital-records/vital-records/civilunion/index.html

Concerning us working together: to anyone philosophically opposed to our position on the Hawaii Civil Unions matter, that’s OK. If you cannot respect our position and it’s a sticking point for us working together, we are not a good fit for one another and perhaps you’re better served by another videography company.

To anyone wishing to have their wedding or legal Hawaii Civil Union webcast or a DVD/ Blu-Ray production made, it would be an honor to work with you on your special day. Just give us a call or email us.

To read more about what we stand for, checkout our Maui Wedding Mission Statement.

Check out more on the Hawaii Civil Unions news at the Star Advisor.

We wish everyone a very happy and healthy New Year and hope that you can share it with the ones you love.

Questions, comments, an open and respectful debate are welcome. Just use the comment section below.

Stephan writes for Live Maui Webcasts blog to pass along pertinent information on all things weddings, Maui and Hawaii. Read more about him here.

 

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No, no, we were not shooting a celebrity Maui wedding video, nor were we paparazzi hanging out in the bushes with long lenses shooting celebrities down in Wailea. Nope, we were actually called upon by the Four Seasons Resort Maui to do the photo shoot of a yoga retreat they were hosting and whose Hollywood Star Power included Vanessa Hudgens (who has starred in various musicals and Disney Movies) and Perrey Reeves of the hit series Entourage, as well as Old School and Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

And yes, there actually were paparazzi in the bushes that day. It sure felt good to be “the official photographers!”

Here is a photo of Vanessa published in US Weekly Magazine October 3rd:

This shot came quite organically. Vanessa is naturally bubbly and gave us many looks, always having fun with it. The setting was tough though, since the assignment was to be handled at around 2:00-4:00PM, which of course meant the sun was high up in the sky and the trade winds were whipping through. Luckily, we were blessed with some clouds that rolled in to take out the harsh shadows. We then threw a gold reflector on her face and that’s the image which came out.

You may be asking yourself: what’s the deal? Do you do video or photo? The answer is: we do Maui wedding videos and webcasts, however, every-so-often, when we’re asked to do still photography for a select few clients, we oblige.

We recommend a handful of photographers here on Maui for weddings, so give us a call and we’ll share those with you!

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***GEEK ALERT*** (this post may only be suitable for tech-geeks)

We have worked hard to bring our technology to the cutting edge.

We began migrating our content delivery platform from flash — a format with which mobile platforms are generally not very compatible —  to HTML 5 which is way more mobile friendly. During our last few live Maui wedding internet broadcasts, our audiences reported watching from their DROID phones and iPhones out on the go.

How cool is that? Train delayed and you can’t get to your home computer in time to watch your best friend’s Maui Wedding? No Problem! Just tap in to the stream with your iPhone, Droid, Windows Phone, Symbian, iPad, etc… and watch it on the go!

Now, we still highly recommend our audience rely on high speed cable  or DSL internet connections, because mobile ISP’s (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, etc…) network bandwidth may not make for the most reliable & sustained connection to the internet. In addition, some mobile internet users need to keep their bandwidth quotas in mind, lest they get charged up the wazzoo by their carrier.

Here is a real comment from a recent wedding…

… and — oddly enough — actual live and in-person guests at one of our weddings have been guilty of tapping into the stream and having it play live on their iPhones AS THE WEDDING WAS UNFOLDING right in front of them. Now, I don’t know, but those guilty guys may have a bit of a technology addiction, wouldn’t you say?

Crazy. Haha…

But we are flattered that so many people actually endeavor to try our services on their various devices! The smiles on the wedding couple’s faces, the grateful viewing audience and the technology junkies all validate the work we do.

Thank you!

Stephan writes for Live Maui Webcasts blog to pass along pertinent information on all things weddings, Maui and Hawaii. Read more about him here.

 

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