So you want love the vibe of a Hawaii adventure elopement, but you don’t want to get all hot and sweaty before saying I do? Say less. I’m here for it! These locations are two of my favorites that give you mountains, palm trees, lava rock cliffs with salty ocean waves crashing against them. All the adventure but minutes from the parking lot. Plus, if you’re staying in Waikiki, they’re under 40 minutes away. Oh, and did I mention, I helped them plan all of this in less than a month! So if you need help planning a last minute elopement in Hawaii, I’m not just your photographer, but will help you pick the best Oahu locations with the best backdrops.

Makapu’u Beach

For S+D’s elopement, we started off at Makapu’u Beach on Oahu. Normally, I would recommend this spot at sunrise, but these two weren’t up for a 4am wake up call so we decided on a late afternoon beach elopement instead. We started off at 3:30pm so we could make it to the next location for the ceremony for sunset. I just love how you can get the look of a hiking adventure, but this spot is just a couple minutes from the parking lot. And, the beach is big enough so we still had a lot of privacy. It was a really sunny day which brought out the bright blue ocean water!

Halona Beach

After spending about 40 minutes at Makapu’u Beach, we headed to Halona Beach. It’s the perfect way to get in two locations in a shorter photography package because they’re less than 10 minutes apart from each other! It’s also a lot less stressful when planning for convenience. You get lots more variety when you add on a second location and you get to adventure around the island.

We met S+D’s officiant, Darren from Hoku Pacific Officiants, at Halona Beach for their sunset ceremony. Technically, you can’t actually see the sunset from this location, but it is still so romantic here in the late afternoon. They put on their stunning matching tropical lei from Eco Mindful Lei before the ceremony. You cannot get married in Hawaii without some tropical flowers! S wore a lei po’o (head lei) with anthuriums and orchids while D wore a matching full ti leaf lei.

Darren guided S+D with a traditional Hawaiian lei ceremony and a sand ceremony to bless their marriage with traditional Hawaiian culture. They also wrote and exchanged their own personal vows, which I cannot recommend enough. Handwriting your own vows in a vow book or even just a piece of paper is such a special way to start off your new journey together. After the ceremony, we climbed around the lava cliffs for more epic photos! You can check out the full gallery from their Oahu adventure elopement here. If you need help planning your Oahu elopement, don’t hesitate to ask me any questions!