Waimea Valley Reviews

We LOVED having our wedding at Waimea Valley. We worked with Kealohi and she was great throughout the entire process.

Being born and raised in Hawaii, it was important to me to have our wedding at a place I called home. Not only is Waimea Valley breathtakingly beautiful, it serves as an important historical and cultural part of Hawaii. We decided to have our wedding at Waimea Valley in April 2023, and just had our wedding last week, March 2024. We had 2 options (in the valley) to choose from and decided to have our wedding on the main lawn and Pikake pavilion. We loved the main lawn since it had a large tree as its focal point. We loved all the plants and trees that surrounded the valley as well.

Kealohi made the planning process a breeze. She was very informative and answered our questions promptly. We were able to take a tour of the venue in September 2023, where she gave us a personal tour and shared historical and cultural information about the valley. During the day of the wedding, Kealohi was present and available when needed.

We would 10/10 recommend having an event or wedding here at Waimea Valley.

The only issues we had were with non-Waimea vendors(wedding coordinator) and some visitors refusing to leave our venue. Kealohi was quick to help and handled every situation quickly and professionally. Every vendor from her recommended list was wonderful. Our coordinator (not on her list) was disorganized and didn't listen to our wants. Every hiccup we had along the way, Kealohi handled it well and helped us tremendously.

Sending much mahalo's and aloha their way.

We loved the staff at Waimea Valley. Kealohi and Kim were both so helpful and responsive, and made everything extremely easy for us. Thank you!

Our wedding was seriously a dream! The day couldn’t have gone better. It was such a relief to not feel stress on my wedding day and just to be able to enjoy. From booking to the day Waimea Valley was commutative, helpful, and informative. I highly recommend this venue for those wanting an amazing wedding!

My husband and I had our rehearsal dinner here for our wedding party and immediate family members. Afterwards, we had all of our guests join us for welcome drinks and light bites. We also took some pre-wedding photos with a photographer on the property because the scenery was too beautiful to not capture it! We were able to organize a golf cart to drive us around so we could reach different parts of the garden with the limited time we had. The Waimea Valley team helped manage all of these details seamlessly! We used the Proud Peacock but any one of their venues would be a beautiful choice. The ease of navigation and parking was a bonus too. I can't thank the Waimea Valley team enough for all their help!

Pros:
- OMG SUCH A GORGEOUS VENUE! We barely needed any decorations at all, and or guests were so stunned when they arrived!
- Breathtaking options for various types of ceremonies and receptions. We chose the Main Lawn with the giant monkey pod tree as our ceremony site, and the Pikake Pavilion as our reception site. Due to COVID, we didn't have an option to tour the venue before we flew out for our wedding (we did a quick walkthrough a few days before), and I was surprised to learn that the sites we chose are literally connected to the welcome center. However, since the grounds closed to the public at 4PM, our wedding was very private and quiet.
- The split level Pikake Pavilion was perfect in allowing all our guests, no matter where they were seated, a great view of our sweetheart table and the dancefloor.
- Take advantage of that photo tour! They offer an incredible golf cart tour so you can capture all the photo/video in various locations. This was the most worthwhile splurge, and we had the best time enjoying the gardens and waterfall, and appreciating the beauty and spiritual energy the valley has to offer - all while getting some seriously magazine-worthy photos and videos!
- Bridal Suite was very close to our ceremony and reception site - right above the main welcome center. It was such a convenient location for our wedding party! They also split the room for us so the grooms party could "get ready" in the same place as the bridal party without seeing each other! So sweet!
- The grounds are home to three adult male peacocks, two of which are very social and made frequent appearances to say hello to our guests. Luckily they stayed pretty quiet during our event. :)
- Light mountain breezes, tropical foliage, sounds of nature were so calming and serene.
- Ample parking for guests, even though we did opt for a party/tour bus to shuttle our guests from Waikiki/Kapolei. This extra trip really provided a fun aspect for our guests, making our big-day a huge fully planned event for them too!
- Very friendly and professional staff. The events manager, Kim, was super helpful and so patient with us trying to lock own our wedding not even two months before our date! (Our initial venue fell through rather late... and we were scrambling to pull this off!) Also our golf cart driver, Kealohi, was so incredibly kind and awesome too!

Cons:
- The Bridal Suite doesn't have adequate AC. We ended up opening the doors and allowing the mountain breeze to cool us down - then curtaining off the small AC booth for only when we needed to change.
- Not enough seating for all our guests! For some reason, they didn't put out enough ceremony benches to seat all of our guests, and we had a row on either side standing. We would've run into a similar seating issue with our reception tables, but we luckily caught that a few days before when we did our on-site tasting... (5 foot round tables fit 8 adults at MOST.)
- "Projector" wasn't as advertised, they only have a projection screen but no projector or hookups. We made a cute slideshow but ended up throwing that out at the last minute...
- WIFI is good for texts, but not much else. We also had to cancel our livestream at the last minute because the connectivity would not allow for video/audio streaming.
- You have to use the on site catering: Ke Nui Kitchen. Their food was incredible, but their beer options were incredibly lackluster (we're big beer nerds) and obscenely overpriced.

Overall, I would highly recommend this venue. The exclusiveness and natural beauty really enhances the romantic atmosphere of your wedding day, and your guests will be raving for quite a while afterwards! :)

Waimea Valley is an incredibly special place to get married. From the moment you enter the valley, you feel the “mana,” or power, of the place. Even though the valley is located on the busy North Shore of Oahu, it is tucked away nestled between the mountains, and when you are there you feel a sense of serenity and peace. Everywhere you look you see lush, tropical gardens and greenery, which makes for a stunning backdrop for photos. We had our ceremony and reception at the Upper Meadow, which is about a 5-minute shuttle ride from the visitor center. Since it’s located deeper in the valley, this spot felt very private and intimate, even though the lawn is quite large with a lot of room to spread out. Our entire event took place outside, and except for the dinner under an open-air tent, we spent the whole night under the stars. With everything outdoors and the large amount of space to work with, this is an excellent place to have a “socially distant” wedding. We planned for and expected to have some rain during our event, but the weather ended up being perfect – a dry and cool afternoon and evening with temperature in the mid-70’s. The venue’s exclusive caterer, Ke Nui Kitchen, is also located in the valley and provided the most delicious, farm-to-table fresh food for our wedding, and the craft cocktails we selected from Ke Nui Kitchen’s bar menu were a huge hit with our guests. Most importantly, all of the staff at Waimea Valley Events and Ke Nui Kitchen were incredible to work with. Kimberly, the Events Manager, was so accommodating, helpful, and understanding as we planned our wedding at Waimea, even when the constantly changing Covid-related restrictions and orders made planning especially complicated. In the end, we couldn’t have been happier with our wedding venue, and every single one of our guests shared with us how beautiful our venue was.

Working with Waimea Valley was easy and seamless! They were attentive and responded to all inquiries in a timely manner. The rental fee was affordable and included chairs and tables. They do require that you cater your food through Ke Nui Kitchen, which was actually fine because they are great and it removes the hassle from working with a caterer who doesn’t know the area and staff. Other than that, the valley is so gorgeous and provided the perfect backdrop, and the staff was amazing to work with.

We did not have our wedding at Waimea Valley but we treated our wedding guests to an eco-tourism experience. Everyone who comes to Hawaii hits up the beach and hikes the beautiful mountains but not everyone is able to plant native trees or weed invasive species. We got in touch with Waimea’s volunteer coordinator, Melani, and she organized a hike for us and our guests up one of Waimea’s ridges to do some volunteer work. It was hard work under the hot sun but we planted more than 20 trees and shrubs. Our guests played a role in contributing to Hawaii’s ‘aina (land) and as a result, they were treated to free access to Waimea valley for the day to swim at the waterfall and we catered a small meal and happy hour for them to celebrate our success. I think we got some really good karma from our volunteer work because the weather on our wedding was beautiful and we were able to get some amazing shots on the ridge and with our friends. Like those trees we planted we hoped the roots of our relationship with our friends and families attending our wedding would continue to grow and flourish over time. Thank you Waimea Valley botanical team and Melani for the amazing experience.

My daughter's wedding was absolutely perfect at Waimea Valley. We enjoyed working with Kimberly, the contact person for the venue. Th catering was from KiNui Kitchen, and their food was amazing. The entire planning process and day-of went extremely smoothly. Thank you to everyone who made this such a magical day.

Waimea Valley and Tinker are great! We did a few different walkthroughs leading up to the wedding and Tinker was always so helpful! Waimea Valley was the most gorgeous wedding venue, we are so happy with our whole experience.

We got married and had our reception at Waimea Valley at the end of July and it proved to be an absolutely amazing experience. Our POC at WV was Tinker Bloomfield, the Valley’s Events Coordinator. Tinker is in charge of coordinating all of the Valley’s events, including scheduling and managing the on-site logistics for weddings (i.e. venue location (there are multiple locations in WV), seating arrangements, locations for post-ceremony photography, etc). Tinker was even able to guide us through the rehearsal to show us how ceremonies typically go. Tinker was great; she was organized, friendly and very personable. As the Events Coordinator for the entire Waimea Valley, we sensed that Tinker was very busy, but she was still relatively quick to respond via email and was very easy to meet with during the planning process. Tinker was a real pleasure to work with. After meeting with Tinker a few times, we had no concerns that our wedding would go off without a hitch, and it did.

As for the Valley itself, we wanted a wedding venue that incorporated Hawaii’s beautiful natural landscape while also providing a somewhat formal and comfortable atmosphere option for the reception. We got married under the large banyan tree on the main lawn and had our reception in the Peacock Pavilion, which is less than 100yds across the lawn from the tree. This turned out to be a great arrangement and really embodied the convenience and “feel” that what we had hoped to capture for the day. WV is so beautiful and having the bayan tree on the main lawn serve as the backdrop of the ceremony was simply breath-taking. There was a slight concern that visitor traffic to the valley would interfere with our ceremony/reception, but it didn’t, save for one visitor who tried to get a drink from the bar during the reception. Getting married at the end of July in Hawaii, it was a little hot/humid, but not unbearable. A slight breeze makes a world of difference. We highly recommend WV!

You really can't lose with Waimea Valley; ALL of their venues were so beautiful, and I was lucky to choose one so green and full of life and beauty. Kim and Kealohi helped me, and they were very informative and helped me a lot. Thank you so so much for making this day special.

We were looking at having our wedding at Kualoa Ranch or Waimea Valley and we chose Waimea Valley because it is gorgeous and because Tinker the events coordinator and the other staff members there seemed sincerely happy for us, that we were looking at having our wedding there and interested in what was happening, we weren't just another event for them to cash in on. We had our ceremony on the main lawn under the large tree which was beautiful, our wedding photos was on Palm Meadows which was gorgeous, (its an extra charge to get the golf cart ride all the way out there), and our reception was in the Pikake Pavilion which with the right decorations looked really nice. We had a great time at Waimea Valley and loved everything about it!

Our wedding day was absolutely amazing, and we cannot thank the day-of staff from the catering company, K&K, enough for their food and drink service.

The venue itself was very difficult to deal with and the woman in charge of helping us for the day seemed as if she had smoked a big joint before coming to work. Our wedding was 45 minutes late because the groom and groomsmen went to the wrong parking lot, and the girl knew this but just stood idly by while the bridesmaids and the wedding planner were panicking and asking where the groomsmen were.

The communication leading up to the day was very sparse and difficult to get straight answers. I understand they are on island time and everyone is busy, but when you are paying that much money to a venue, a bit of service is expected. Especially planning a wedding out of country. 1 month before the wedding we had a planning phone call and that was super amazing, that was when communication got passed on to a different team and things turned around 10-fold.

They incorrectly billed us and on the morning of the wedding I got an email saying I owed them $700 more because of their error. I thought that was absolutely terrible customer service. It was the morning of my wedding, the last thing I wanted to be dealing with was their error.

All in all, Waimea Valley is an absolutely breathtaking location and they know it. They definitely have some bugs to fix in their service team, but I guess that's the trade off.

Be firm in what you want, remember that you are the paying customer, and enjoy your special day with the most picturesque background imaginable.