Liz and Michael's Laid-Back Destination Wedding in Hawaii

The Couple

The day Liz Cebron met Michael Williams for a rooftop lunch arranged by a mutual friend in 2011, it was a scorching 90 degrees. The New Yorkers hit it off, but it's not the scintillating conversation that she remembers most. "Michael wore a black button-down shirt, and he wasn't sweating at all," says Liz, a digital strategist for J.Crew. "I thought that was pretty amazing!" When she and Michael, founder of a marketing firm and a style blogger at A Continuous Lean, met up a few weeks later at a music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, the pal Liz had come with wanted to head back to Manhattan early. Michael stepped up and offered to take Liz home later. "The rest," he says, "is history."

Just over two years later, Michael popped the question, only this time he wasn't as cool. (In fact, his face and neck were so flushed, he told Liz he had razor burn.) Despite his nerves—and a few seconds of fumbling for the ring—he managed to propose during an evening walk in Central Park, catching her completely off-guard. That wasn't the only surprise: He also flew in Liz's parents from California for a celebration at a nearby restaurant. When it came to planning their April 26, 2014, wedding, the couple made it a top priority to trade the city for the surf, inviting 103 loved ones to join them for a luau at The Club at Kukui'ula, a private property on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. "It's hard for us to relax with the craziness of New York and our jobs, and it's hard not to relax and be happy when you're in Hawaii," says Liz.