Wedding sprawl adds to conflicts on crowded isle

Add to the list of things that are marring the best of Hawaii an unlikely antagonist: weddings.

Any day of the week, stand-up paddlers and shoreline fishers are having to make way for brides in sequined satin wedding dresses, grooms sweating in tuxedos, and a crew of wedding guests and support staff giving beachgoers the stink eye for “crashing.”

It’s not only at beach parks. These days, wedding ceremonies and wedding photo sessions show up all over town. Turn the corner onto Merchant Street and there’s some hipster couple in full bridal regalia posing in the urine-drenched doorway of a downtown historic building.

Drive through Kakaako but be careful of the Japanese brides hopping through the gummy patches of asphalt while the grooms look warily at the mural that will be the centerpiece of their wedding pictures. They will have to explain that to incredulous grandchildren someday.

Contemporary weddings come with expectations of splendor and requirements of novelty regardless of budget. No longer is the modern bride content with a simple church wedding or grandma’s backyard.

Reality TV and certain advertising campaigns have convinced brides that they should demand everything and anything they want on their wedding day. No compromises should be considered. Another force at play is the intoxicating game of Instagram.

If your wedding photos don’t show a Hollywood eye for location and set design (running through a cow pasture, kissing under a waterfall, jumping off the end of a pier …), then why bother getting married at all?

And if the dress costs thousands of dollars, who has money to rent a gazebo at a hotel? The beach is free.

(Hotel weddings encroaching on public beaches — that’s a whole category by itself.)

In 2016 the state implemented a permitting system to try to get some control over the spread of weddings in state parks and beaches. As in most things, though, laws are made for honest people, and while some wedding businesses do the right thing, others just flat-out lie to their customers (“Don’t worry! We got this!”) or see what they can get away with. Permits are also required for events at city parks, but stories abound of rows of white folding chairs and festooned arches being set up on the sand with no regard to other beach users.

While local government could probably do a better job at managing the demand weddings place on public places, and commercial wedding planners should follow the law regardless of their bridezilla’s wild wishes, the situation starts with the wedding couple’s demands. Brides are told they are queens for the day, and not benevolent queens, either. It makes for unrealistic demands that infringe on others.

One of the FAQs that comes up on websites for Hawaii wedding planners is, “Privacy is really important to me. How can I keep my Hawaii beach wedding private?”

Well, you can’t in an island state where, by law, all beaches are public. Or you can marry Bill Gates. Those are your choices.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.