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Group Calls For Honolulu To Reopen Weddings

Courtesy Oahu Wedding Association

The Oahu Wedding Association is asking Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi to have weddings fall under the same guidelines as other commercial events under the City's Tier 3 of its reopening plan.

Under the current Tier 3 phase, static events such as seminars and graduations are allowed. Interactive events, such as weddings and business conferences, are not.

About 50 of its members - which include wedding vendors such as officiants, make-up artists, DJs and photographers - held a rally outside Honolulu Hale on Thursday.

"For us, we are a commercial business. We have commercial liability insurance and all these different things and we work at commercial properties that have the same safety protocols," Joseph Esser, a photographer and president of the Oahu Wedding Association, said. "We're talkiing about the same exact venues, the same exact hotels but we are just kind of under the new tier mandates being banned and being restricted to what's really been an impossible number of attendees to actually conduct a wedding."

At a press conference earlier this month, Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi said people can still get married but gatherings must be kept to 10 people.

With that limit, Esser said if a couple had a photographer, videographer, wedding officiant and a coordinator, only four additional people could be invited to the wedding.

Mayor Blangiardi did speak with the group after the rally. Esser said he hoped there will be some guidance to plan for weddings this summer and later this year.

Under its current plan, at Tier 4, interactive events at 50% capacity would be allowed on Oahu.

Jason Ubay is the managing editor at Hawaiʻi Public Radio. Send your story ideas to him at jubay@hawaiipublicradio.org.
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