admin Oleema Miller doesn’t remember the first time she met Bryan Phillips. Bryan, however, remembers it perfectly. In 2002, the then 16-year-old was lifeguarding on the North Shore of Oahu when he spotted a girl surfing Pupukea, a break right next to the Banzai Pipeline. He was beyond impressed: Pipeline has some of the most notoriously difficult waves in Hawaii, but Oleema—who looked a few years younger than he was—was cruising past nearly everyone around her. Little did Bryan know she was a preteen surfer with Roxy and visited the North Shore every winter with her father for brand photo shoots.
It took a few years for Oleema to notice Bryan back. Gradually she began to wonder about this “really good-looking guy” who always seemed to be a few feet away from her. Turns out that was Bryan’s plan all along: “He admitted years and years into us dating that he would see me from the lifeguard tower and would paddle out nonchalantly to make it seem like it was random,” she says, laughing.
In December 2015, Oleema worked up the courage to strike up a conversation. As fate would have it, on that very day Bryan had worked up the courage too: “He took the words right out of my mouth and said, ‘I’ve seen you for years but never introduced myself.’” Later that day he ran up to her on the beach and gave her his phone number on a Band-Aid—“in true lifeguard fashion,” adds Oleema.
Six and a half years later, he proposed to Oleema, now the cofounder of swimwear brand Mikoh, on the Pont Neuf bridge in Paris. The box held two things: Oleema’s great-grandmother’s ring…and a Band-Aid.
The two wed in April 2023 on Oahu. With the help of planner Cortney Crane, they organized a five-day affair. On Monday night they held a rehearsal dinner at Halekulani Hotel in Waikiki, followed by a welcome party at their Haleiwa home on Tuesday. (As a nod to her Chinese heritage, Oleema hosted a traditional tea ceremony, where she wore a cheongsam given to her by her grandmother.) The next day they encouraged guests to explore the island while they spent the evening alone together.
On Thursday, Oleema and Bryan held their ceremony on a mountain at Kualoa Ranch, a 4,000-acre private nature reserve and working cattle ranch in Oahu. Oleema wore a custom gown by Monique Lhuillier, designed to look like a beautiful cloud floating by, along with a diamond tennis bracelet gifted by her mother and father and diamond studs from Bryan. As she started getting ready, however, a gentle rain began to fall in the valley. “While we were waiting in the trailer where I’d put my dress on and do final touch-ups, a friend let me know that there were puddles and mud everywhere and there was no way I would be able to walk down the mountain without slipping,” she said. “It was at that point I decided I would go barefoot to make the trek possible—and then never put on a pair of shoes the entire evening.”
