Japanese Couples Discover L.A. as Place to Tie Knot

Shin Asai and Hiromi Okiyama stood before the Rev. Harry Taffel as he married them in an empty Rancho Palos Verdes chapel. Unable to understand English, they waited for Taffel’s cue before pronouncing the words they had practiced over and over again--”I will.”

The couple had arrived in Los Angeles from Japan just 24 hours before, beginning an odyssey of wedding preparations: clothes fittings, a first-time look at the church, an initial meeting with the minister and a rehearsal.

By the time they returned to Japan eight days later, they had capped the ceremony with a whirlwind tour of Southern California that included the shops of Melrose Avenue, the beaches of Santa Monica and the attractions of Disneyland.

They were one more couple, lured by bargain rates and the romance of a scenic Southern California setting, to partake of a growing phenomenon, the Japanese package wedding tour.

Movie Star Started It

Ever since a Japanese movie star, Yuzo Kayama, married in Hollywood 10 years ago amid great media attention, young Japanese middle-class couples have increasingly been moved to have their own nuptials in the Los Angeles area. In the last 12 months, about 150 couples have journeyed here to exchange vows, according to Yoshino Yamamoto, proprietor of Tokyo Bridal & Tuxedo in Little Tokyo.

Yamamoto’s store is the only shop in Little Tokyo that rents American wedding wear to Japanese tourists, she said. A popular spot for Japanese tourists and honeymooners, Los Angeles ranks second only to Hawaii as a site for Japanese weddings outside Japan, she said.

Koshiro Sato, a Los Angeles-based tour guide, said Japanese tourists fall in love with images of Southern California. “They only see a picture of a place, then want to go,” Sato said. “Besides, it’s cheaper.”

The couples then make their marriage legal in Japan by registering with their city office. Through travel agents in Japan, couples can arrange a wedding ceremony and honeymoon in Southern California for less than what is typically spent in Japan for bridal gown rentals alone.

For less than $5,000, a Japanese couple can take a six-day package wedding tour to Los Angeles that includes round-trip air fare from Tokyo, hotel accommodations, wedding dress and tuxedo rental, chauffeur-driven car, wedding ceremony and church fees.

The $250 to $450 that Yamamoto charges for a wedding gown rental in Little Tokyo is a bargain for a Japanese bride who customarily wears three gowns that rent for around $5,400.

Costs for a wedding and reception in Japan can easily exceed $20,000, according to a 1986 issue of “Kekkon no Jiten” (Dictionary of Weddings). Reception hall rentals range from $12,000 to $14,500. Other costs include giving the guests traditional gifts worth about $35 each, and the “go-betweens,” the two people who arranged for the couple to meet, a monetary gift of at least $1,000 each.

“Young couples think it is a waste to spend all of this money,” she said. “So they come to Los Angeles for a simple wedding.”

Consequently, Japanese couples like Asai, 29, and Okiyama, 26, are opting for wedding ceremonies here, then returning to Japan for a small reception for family and friends. Thus, the reception becomes a party where wedding and honeymoon photographs are shown, without the traditional obligations of a formal wedding reception.

Asai said he was not worried about his family’s missing the ceremony. “My parents said it was OK,” he explained in Japanese. “They wanted to come, but it’s really easier that they didn’t.”

Okiyama said her parents went along with the plan but would have preferred a more traditional wedding. “Since I’m the only daughter, it’s a little sad for my parents,” she said.

Monetary Gifts Avoided

They chose to come to America to marry, in part, because “I felt bad about obligating my friends to give money,” Okiyama said. Customarily, wedding guests are expected to give monetary gifts ranging from $150 from close friends to $400 from relatives.

The couple expected to spend about $10,000 for the wedding, honeymoon and souvenirs.

Asai and Okiyama arrived at Los Angeles International Airport one Monday morning this month and were immediately taken to Yamamoto’s second-floor Little Tokyo Square shop to choose their wedding clothes.

By 9 the next morning, Okiyama was being attended to in a Little Tokyo beauty salon. Asai sat nervously nearby, sipping coffee and eating a sandwich.

At 10:05 a.m., Asai, dressed in a stiff white tuxedo, white bow tie, white patent leather shoes and clip-on boutonniere, and Okiyama, in a lacy white wedding dress with a long silky train, rushed down the mall’s escalator, out the doors and into a sky-blue 1983 Cadillac driven by Sato, who would serve as chauffeur, witness and photographer for the day.

An hour later, the car pulled up to the Wayfarers Chapel, a church famous among tourists for its open glass chapel, lush ferns, colorful flowers and view of the Pacific Ocean from its perch on a Palos Verdes Peninsula hillside.

Church Rehearsal

Wedding director Carmen Fowler instructed the couple in English, as Sato translated, to walk down the aisle slowly. She pointed to the vinyl-covered cushion on the third and final step of the altar and told them to kneel there to receive the minister’s blessing.

Okiyama watched intently as Fowler swung her foot down to the second step in an exaggerated motion, demonstrating a smooth maneuver around the train of the bride’s dress.

When noon arrived, Fowler told the young couple to wait at the entrance. Opening a small wooden box mounted against a wall, Fowler pushed several buttons. Speakers blared to life with the traditional “Wedding March.”

Taffel stepped out to the altar. Asai and Okiyama, arm in arm, walked down the aisle, between the empty pews, and up the two steps. Taffel asked for the rings. As the groom produced one ring, the bride pulled another from her finger.

The words love and marriage echoed throughout Taffel’s service. The couple looked stiffly ahead.

Taffel, eyeing the groom with a faint smile and nod, asked, “And in your life together will you strive to be loving and caring, so long as you both shall live?”

Asai, confident of his English after several practice sessions, answered slowly but clearly, “I will.”

Same Question, Same Answer

Taffel looked at the bride and asked the same question. “I will,” she said enthusiastically.

A quick, shy kiss followed.

“I now pronounce that they are husband and wife,” Taffel announced.

The piped music played again. Husband and wife paraded out.

Then Fowler paraded them back in, where Sato snapped photographs.

Taffel, a veteran of marrying Japanese tourists, contemplated the meaning of the ceremony.

“If they don’t know English, then at times I wonder if they know what it all means,” he said.

But at most weddings, he said, “I can see the tears in the bride’s eyes. I know it means something. I remember when one bride came up to me and said, ‘I will never forget you.’ ”