When Exchanging Vows Becomes a Package Deal

At first, Eisaku Hiraoka and Saki Mizuno blended in with their group, scrambling for luggage at Los Angeles International Airport, gawking at the sites along Hollywood Boulevard, scooping up cosmetics and inexpensive watches in Little Tokyo. But after dusk, the couple distinguished themselves.

As their companions rode by tour bus to their hotel, Hiraoka and Mizuno traveled by limo to a gown-rental store in Westwood. Married recently in a civil ceremony in their native Japan, the 34-year-old doctor and his 25-year-old office-worker bride were embarking on a second round of nuptials.

For about $10,000, a tiny fraction of what a similar event would cost in Japan, Hiraoka’s surgeon father had purchased a six-day tour, for six, that combined a honeymoon with a church wedding.

Included in the wedding package were the groom’s rented tuxedo, the bride’s elaborate rented gown and all the trimmings, professional hair and makeup styling, the constant supervision of a tour agent and two wedding-day limos.

While parental participation in such trips is rare, the wedding package is an increasingly popular custom, initiated by movie star Yuzo Kayama when she wed with fanfare in Hollywood in 1978. Singer Tomoko Ogawa’s marriage several years later at Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes turned the glass church, with its lush gardens and ocean view, into a popular wedding-package destination. The Hiraokas chose the chapel over Disneyland, where they could have wed with Mickey in attendance.

Occasionally, a bride packs her gown, but most rent; they glean visions of their dream dresses from Japanese bridal magazines. At One Night Affair in Westwood, after Hiraoka swiftly chose black tails from a brochure, Mizuno flipped through plastic-covered photographs. Although some brides try on six or seven dresses, Mizuno wanted to see only two.

One was too big to be altered immediately, and so she happily settled for a Demetrios silk-satin, high-neck, lavishly beaded gown with a cathedral train.

“Beautiful,” she said in English. “Look at me, I look like a girl in a magazine,” she added in Japanese, giggling shyly, turning to see the splendor of the train. After choosing a veil, fabric pumps and jewelry, she put on a terry robe and slippers to await speedy alterations.

Hiraoka’s tails, delivered to the store in a mere 30 minutes, would be altered too. Within less than two hours, Mizuno and Hiraoka were back in the limo, heading for the hotel and dinner with their group.

But the next morning, they were back on the wedding-package schedule. At 6:30 a.m., Janice Nii, a Japanese-speaking makeup artist, arrived late and out of breath, making apologies to everyone including Haruo Nakai, owner of Jas Express in Glendora, who was supervising the event. As the travel agent fussed with the groom’s tails, Nii turned a table by the window into an impromptu makeup area.

Every move made to transform Mizuno was watched by her groom, who confessed he was nervous now: “Because I love her.”

“These girls usually don’t wear makeup,” explained Nii as she applied foundation, penciled Mizuno’s brows, darkened her lashes, rouged her cheeks and drew on bright red lipstick.

The couple was met in the hotel lobby by their mothers, dressed in traditional black embroidered kimonos with gold obis, and their fathers, dressed in striped morning trousers and tail coats.

A rehearsal in Japanese, conducted by Nakai at the chapel, failed to prepare the bride for the moment when the Rev. Ted LeVan instructed the groom to kiss her, but she recovered in time to pose for more photographs. A wedding-cake-and-coffee reception at a nearby Tony Roma’s followed. Then the couple, now “a union of souls and a bonding of minds,” returned to the tour.

But the memory of this packaged wedding--with the bride in the typical Japanese choice of an overblown American gown--would remain long after the families returned home.

“It’s unusual to have the mothers in their native dress,” remarked a wistful Dot Suiter, the chapel’s wedding director. “I wish the brides would wear those.”