The Hawaii Visitors and Convention
Bureau has begun marketing Hawaii to gay and lesbian couples who are
planning to marry.
According to Civil
Beat, this is the nonprofit's first real push to market
destination weddings to the LGBT community.
On Monday, the marketing organization
released a six-minute video highlighting the surprise wedding of Oahu
couple Christian Alarid and Shayne Barnes.
The video quickly went viral on social
media.
Alarid serves in the Air Force, while
Barnes recently completed his service in the Marine Corps.
The couple got engaged in June and were
planning to marry in 2016. The men had agreed to be models in a
wedding photo shoot for the bureau. Instead, they received their
dream wedding complete with family and friends who traveled to
Honolulu to witness the couple exchange vows.