Sweet Aloha

Big Island wedding of Tony Arata and Paige Barry-Arata

And because both bride and groom were adorned in leis (the Islands' traditional symbol that marks important events in a person's life ... especially, love) the couple got to share a kiss before the ceremony even began.

Well, Alo-ha!

The Bay Area natives (Tony grew up in Atherton, Paige in Palo Alto) knew each other as children but had lost touch as adults.

Tony's father, Alvin Arata and his wife Linda Arata, ran into Paige two years ago at a holiday party hosted by Paige's uncle, Keith Doerge.

"Very impressed by grown-up Paige, I kept after Tony," said Al at the rehearsal dinner he and his wife, hosted, "Telling him he really, really should look Paige up."

Then one random night, Tony thought he spotted Paige at Finnegan's Wake in the midst of a City Hall gathering there. He approached and asked if she was, indeed, Paige Barry.

Paige, who now serves as Finance Director on the Newsom For California Exploratory Committee, was used to (and sometimes annoyed by) people seeking her out in order to access her boss, Mayor Gavin Newsom.

She replied, tersely, in her most savvy City Hall speak: "Yes. What do you want?"

Things went much more smoothly after an official first date and within six-months, it was clear this delightful couple were made for each other.

So it came to pass that some lucky 70 family members and friends gathered at the Kona Village Resort (a longtime holiday haunt of the Barry Family) for fun, sun, mai-tais and Paige and Tony's Nov. 1 marriage.

This rusti-gant (rustic-elegance) spot is sort a grown-up version of Gilligan's Island: nary a high-rise in site, guests are housed in lovely individual hales (Polynesian-style thatched-roof bungalows) and treated to a delightfully down-home Aloha hospitality.

So much so that after a typical round of "Aloha" and "Mahalo" from the super Kona Resort staff, one guest wondered: "Do we say "thank you" this much at home?"

And with so many City Hall staffers in attendance (Mayoral Chief of Staff Steve Kawa; Mayoral Communications Director Nathan Ballard and his wife, Legislative Aide Sarah Ballard; Mayoral Protocol Director Matthew Goudeau; Mayoral Director of Scheduling Anne Taupier; as well as the bride, herself), Al Arata wondered, "Does the Mayor's Office really run when none of you are there?"