There are three major policies/bills that will be addressed and voted on this year at the city level and we desperately need professional guidance to make sure we protect our businesses' ability to conduct weddings on O‘ahu.

Bill 19 - Adoption of an Island-Wide set of rules for commercial operation at all City and County Parks (C&C Parks). Our goal is to remove all piecemeal bans at beach parks and replace these with a more fair and equitable set of rules applied equally to all C&C parks. We must be fully represented and at the table during this process to ensure these rules do not discriminate against the wedding industry.

Park Ranger Program to Enforce Commercial Activity. The City and County of Honolulu City Council will be hiring 4 new parks officers to focus on enforcement. Our goal is to make sure that businesses owners who are legally operating in City and County Parks will be able to do so without interruption.

Bill 10 Commercial Operation at Ag-Zoned and Residentially Zoned Lands (Bill 10). This year, we will see the resurfacing of Bill 10 which in previous versions sought to highly regulate wedding operations on Agricultural and Residential Zoned Lands. Our goal is to make sure that weddings are not singled out and targeted with unfair rules but rather are allowed to operate on legally approved venues in these designated land zones.

After researching and speaking with a few lobbyist groups, we are planning to hire The McClellan Group (TMG), a Honolulu-based consulting firm that specializes in strategic planning, public affairs, and community engagement. They will work directly with the Oahu Wedding Association’s political action committee and board of directors for the next 12 months to meet with, consult, plan, and engage with our city and state leaders and lawmakers.

Direct advocacy: TMG will work with the O‘ahu Wedding Association’s assigned representatives and members in setting up meetings with key Administrative and Council stakeholders regarding legislation affecting OWA’s members, like commercial filming at parks and beaches in the City and County of Honolulu. TMG will facilitate the O‘ahu Wedding Association in drafting, submitting, and providing oral testimony to and at any relevant committee, administrative, and public hearings. TMG will work with key policy makers in responding to inquiries related to subject legislation (like Bill 10 and Bill 19) and provide real-time advice to the O‘ahu Wedding Association in our engagements with the City.

Capacity Building: OWA’s members are our greatest asset in engaging with policy makers. Curating a regular spate of conversations with OWA’s membership with our City and as needed State policy makers goes a long way. This is Hawai‘i after all, and with familiarity comes trust. OWA will work with TMG to develop and execute an engagement strategy which transcends the current issues at hand and that will equip OWA with the institutional capacity to engage with key policy makers in real time.

Eyes and Ears: OWA’s board and membership have better things to do than hang around Honolulu Hale and our State’s Capitol all day long. TMG will be our eyes and ears, looking out for and anticipating issues that may affect OWA’s membership and will advise OWA on recommended engagement strategies as issues arise. Ideally, TMG will help our organization to get in front of difficult issues quickly and identify potential opportunities for our membership.

OWA is a 501c6 non-profit trade organization with a very small operating budget. Our board is composed of fellow wedding professionals - we are not politicians. We do not have the expertise nor capacity to see these impactful bills through in the same way a professional political consultant does.

Moreover, OWA’s financial coffer is entirely based on membership dues which only are enough to sustain the organization’s operating and administrative expenses. Our organization simply does not have the funds to hire a lobbyist - this is why we're reaching out to the community for support.