Best Christening Venues In Honolulu Near Me

4worldlovers:
Artistry Event Center & Lounge, located in the heart of Kaka'ako, a unique venue to showcase a multitude of events ranging from concerts, fundraiser, business socials, reunions, graduations, and so much more. We invite you to join us for one of our events or contact us to plan your next event.

4worldlovers: Your wedding is a celebration of love to be treasured forever, so planning your wedding should be fun, exciting, and joyful. At Haiku Gardens, we have a dedicated, Certified Wedding Planner whose only focus is on making your day one you’ll never forget. Whether you live on the island or across the ocean, we make planning your big day easy. We’re here for you to answer your questions, offer our creative insights, handle logistics, and provide the overall planning followed by detailed execution.

As your one-stop shop for everything weddings, Haiku Gardens created packages for every couple. Choose a package that fits you two best, or completely customize your own! Click here to start imagining your beautiful garden wedding!

4worldlovers:
Nestled on a mountain plateau, far from the hustle-and-bustle of the city, Ko‘olau Ballrooms & Conference Center is a place of joy and celebration. Here, wonder abounds, magical moments happen each day, and lifelong memories are made.

With heavenly 2,000-foot peaks and dramatic vertical ridges that capture the light throughout the day, the Ko‘olau Range showcases the enchanting beauty of the Windward side. Beneath these towering pinnacles, the Ko’olau Ballrooms & Conference Center serves as an elegant oasis, a venue unlike any other in Hawai‘i or the world.

The bliss of a newlywed couple’s first kiss. The smile from tutu at her 90th birthday. The nervousness of a high school student’s first prom. The giggles from baby at her first luau. The joy of a community fundraiser uniting for a good cause. The thrill of new possibilities at a company retreat. Whatever your event is, we’re here to make it truly unforgettable.

With floor-to-ceiling windows, our venues are designed to let in nature’s beauty. Seat up to 750 guests for an elegant dinner in our Grand Ballroom, create an intimate wedding reception in our Glass Ballroom, host cocktails on our private lanai, or plan a corporate event in our Mauka and Makai meeting rooms.

4worldlovers: Situated on the 3rd floor rooftop pool deck of the Queen Kapiʻolani Hotel, DECK. features panoramic views of the iconic Diamond Head steps from world famous Waikiki beach! This open-air venue provides a stunning backdrop for our unique American Pacific inspired menu, fresh handcrafted cocktails, locally brewed beers as well as a vast selection of wines.

DECK. is thoughtful in the selection of ingredients for both our menu as well as our handcrafted cocktails. DECK. keeps it fresh, incorporating locally sourced and sustainable ingredients wherever possible through partnerships with local farms, ranches, distilleries, and breweries to create a dining experience that is fully immersed in the beauty of Hawaiʻi. Open daily serving breakfast, brunch, happy hour, and dinner.

Enjoy daily happy hour, brunch bubble offers, as well as weekly specials and live music! Visit our Calendar for our upcoming specials and music lineup.

Driven by Omotenashi hospitality, we welcome like-minded individuals to join us!

4worldlovers:
Natsunoya Tea House on the slopes of Alewa Heights has helped to provide special memories for four generations of Tsumoru Ishimoto’s family.

The Ishimotos have been celebrating anniversaries, birthdays, weddings, reunions and graduations at Honolulu’s oldest teahouse since the mid-’60s.

“We’ve kind of grown up with the staff, and it’s easy because they know what we like,” said Michele Vandenburg, the eldest of Ishimoto’s five children.

“The food is good, and the staff is almost like family to us.”

There are enough longtime customers like the Ishimotos for Natsunoya to maintain five full-time and 25 part-time employees, but competition from restaurants and hotel ballrooms has cut into the once-thriving Japanese teahouse business.

Currently, there are only two teahouses in Honolulu — Natsunoya and Nuuanu Onsen Inc. at 87 Laimi Road. As recently as 1988, there were five, but Kanraku in Kapalama, Kyo-ya in Waikiki and Rainbow Garden in Moiliili have since closed.

“It’s a dying industry,” says Lawrence Fujiwara Jr., who has been running Natsunoya since the death of his father in 1996. “But this place has a lot of charm, and people still come here for the atmosphere and tradition. It’s a place where they can feel comfortable.”

Looking out from the second-floor party room at the spectacular view of Honolulu, Fujiwara notes that location is still a big advantage.

“The view is the same,” he says. “You can see all of Honolulu’s city lights even though there are more obstructions now than there used to be.”

With the help of friends and staff, Fujiwara is repairing and painting the 78-year-old two-story wooden Natsunoya Tea House building at 1935 Makanani Drive and looking at marketing plans to attract a new generation of customers.

“My first project was to fix the place up, and it’s cost about $100,000 so far,” Fujiwara said. “But if I had to hire someone, our cost would have tripled.

“We’re trying to make the place look more like a museum to preserve our Japanese heritage.”

At the same time, he’s opened up the menu to include $18-per-person buffets for parties and has ventured out into catering.

“We’re doing lacquer-box bentos, where we deliver and then go back to pick up the boxes,” he said.

“We also do regular bentos. Last Labor Day, we did 11,400 bentos for Unity House. Friends, relatives and staff cooked for three days for that one.”

Natsunoya’s reputation is built on good food, and head chef Masao Matsuda — known for his intricate food sculptures, called ikezukuri, as well as his cooking — Japanese food specialist Chikao Yasui, and sushi chef Hidemoto Kawai all have been with the Fujiwaras for over 25 years.

“We’re thinking about opening up for lunch a couple of days a week to kill the dead time,” Fujiwara said.

Natsunoya can trace its roots back to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

“My grandfather lost everything he owned in the earthquake and went back to Japan,” Fujiwara said. “He was returning to San Francisco years later when he stopped in Hawaii and decided to stay.”

Shuichi and Taneyo Fujiwara, Lawrence’s grandparents who were immigrants from Shikoku, Japan, purchased the nearly 1-acre Alewa Heights property from the McInerny family and opened Shunchoro Tea House in 1921.

“My grandfather liked the view, and this was the first building on the hill,” Lawrence Fujiwara said. “He had to build his own road and put up the (utility) poles.”

The government took over Shunchoro Tea House during World War II and converted the building into an emergency fire and first-aid station.

After the war, the elder Fujiwaras leased the teahouse to the late Mamoru Kobayashi, who ran it until the mid-’50s.

Lawrence Sr., youngest of Shuichi and Taneyo Fujiwara’s five children, had opened his own teahouse on School Street after the war. It was called Natsunoya.

“They eventually tore it down for the H-1 freeway,” Lawrence Jr. said.

Shunchoro had been closed for a couple of years when Lawrence Sr. reopened the teahouse and changed its name to Natsunoya in 1958.

The late Dr. Thomas Fujiwara, co-founder of Central Medical Clinic and Lawrence Sr.’s brother, became the owner of the Alewa Heights property during that period.

John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Pittsburgh Steelers former running back Franco Harris, sumo star Konishiki and military generals are among Natsunoya’s prominent visitors.

Dorothy Tokairin Kameda, general manager of Nuuanu Onsen Inc. since 1969, says her teahouse cannot compete with Natsunoya.

“We’re small compared to them,” says Kameda, noting that she only has six part-time employees.