Jasmine & Zi
A lawn under the plumeria, an ocean that takes the whole sunset, and torchlight after. Sound on.
All the way to dark.
Jasmine and Zi were married at Ocean Gardens, the lawn at Paradise Cove, in August. Their whole party wore lavender, which against all that green and the pale coral of the plumeria made the group portraits look like they had been color graded before we ever touched them. Every place setting carried a small red and gold favor, the one deliberate warm note in a day that was otherwise ocean and soft purple.
The best of it came late. We walked the two of them down onto the black rock while the sun was still over open water, and they spent most of it laughing at each other rather than at us. Then the torches went up along the grass, the speeches ran warm and long, and the day finished in firelight with the surf still audible under everything.
West facing.
The thing that makes Paradise Cove worth the flight is the direction it points. It sits on the leeward side of Oahu looking straight out at open water, so the sun sets into the ocean rather than dropping behind a ridge, and that gives you a long, even, warm hour instead of the sudden cut you get at a venue with mountains to the west. The lawn is edged with mature plumeria and palms that throw real shade, which matters more than people expect, because midday sun on a Hawaii lawn is directly overhead and unforgiving. We shoot portraits in that shade while the sun is high, then move down onto the volcanic shelf at the water's edge as it drops. After dark the property lights torches along the grass, and a film that has been bright and green all afternoon suddenly has firelight and a black ocean to work with. Planning the day around that turn is most of the job here. More on the venue in our notes on filming at Ocean Gardens.
