Greetings!

Years before DH came into my life, while attending boarding school on O`ahu, I stumbled upon a little chapel built with lava rocks on one of my weekend solitary walks through the lush, green, often misty valley of Mânoa. 

The chapel was on the grounds of the Wai`oli Tea Room. A lover of poems and writings of Robert Louis Stevenson, known by Polynesians as Tusitala, teller of tales, I was intrigued by its connection to the Scottish literary giant.  He wrote in a little thatched grass house, while he maintained a close friendship with Princess Kai`ulani, who was half native Hawaiian and half Scottish.  The house was moved from its original site at `Ainahau, the royal estate in Waikîkî and onto the Tea Room grounds; it is the last physical vestige of that bygone era.

Graphic, courtesy of  Wai`oli Tea Room Site

The chapel in the valley resonated an alluring, simple sweetness and peace.  Perhaps, I subconsciously perceived the mana of Tusitala. At the time of our engagement, I envisioned a simple, intimate wedding in that unforgettably lovely chapel with its leaded stained glass windows with angels wearing mu`umu`u and lei and baby Jesus wearing a coconut hat.  

The guest list would be limited to 20, the capacity of the chapel. Maybe 25, if we sucked in our tummies.  This would include our immediate families, our grandparents, and the closest of our friends. That would be it. 

Small. Simple. Short. Sweet. And very cozy.

My father's business was going gangbusters at the time, so money wasn't the problem as it was when I was a girl. But, as a young adult, I wanted so stubbornly to be just like him, a Horatio Alger type who pulled himself by his own bootstraps, self-initiative, and plain, old-fashioned grit. 

Once in graduate school, I took pride in being able to support myself and was content to live on a shoestring income provided by a graduate assistantship.  To some, it was a pittance; for me, it was a means to be on my own, just as Dad had been at an earlier age. Dad paid his way early in life, dropping out of school in ninth grade to support himself, as well as help his immigrant family through The Great Depression of the 1930s. 

As a parent, Dad left little to chance. He worked hard to make sure that he provided us, his kids, with every educational opportunity denied him.

And provide my parents did. 

Forget the car.  Or fancy clothes.  I was a bookworm and loving school and the learning process,   I took Mom and Dad up on every educational opportunity that came my way. They generously gifted me with an excellent private, college preparatory high school education, followed by a privileged undergraduate education on The Mainland.  For me, those years of schooling were dreams come true.

Call it guilt. All told, my tuition, travel, and living costs were greater than that of my three siblings' educational expenses put together. By the time I was engaged at age 20, I felt that I had been given more than my share of my parents' benevolence.

"To whom much is given, much is expected..."

DH were living on O`ahu then, while both sets of our parents lived on the Big Island. Coordinating long distance wedding plans seemed an inconvenience, if not an impossibility, for me. Besides serving as a teaching assistant of a summer undergraduate course at the University of Hawai`i, I was intensely focused on my graduate research.  

A plain and simple chapel wedding on O`ahu made good sense to me, and was infinitely more appealing to me than a posh, complicated affair. Fancy-schmancy was not my style, and college fees and books topped my priority list.

Yet, I still wanted to incorporate a few wedding traditions.  

The white dress. The bouquet. The walk down the aisle on my father's arm.

I would have loved to have worn my mother's bridal gown, but back then, wedding dresses were not preserved as they are these days.  As a kid, I discovered it stuffed in a tansu drawer in the basement; it became my favorite make-believe costume of my childhood. By the time I was engaged, the humid and warm Hawaiian climate had taken its toll, yellowing my mother's white satin dress, corroding her tiara of orange blossoms, and tattering its fragile veil.

Spending a fortune on a frock that is worn but once seemed utterly frivolous.  Sure, if it were my heart's desire, Mom and Dad would have spent that fortune. It was not, and this was one bill that I had no intention of springing on them.

I was going to buy my own wedding dress.  A dress. Not a gown.

I was upfront with the dressmaker at the Evelyn Margolis Wedding Store in downtown Hilo about my limited funds. She was clearly instructed not to exceed $100.  As it turned out, she was extremely clever and, no doubt, compassionate, as somehow she put together a classically beautiful dress for $75 and a hatted veil for another $25.  

My husband is the elder of two sons of an only son, and unawares to me, his mother began making plans soon after our engagement. She and my father-in-law were, and still are, virtual pillars of their church, while my parents were churchless.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, my mother-in-law simply assumed that we'd be getting married on the Big Island at their church. One day, soon after we had decided on a wedding date, she informed us that she had reserved the church for the ceremony and the church hall for the dinner reception.

Well, of course...

My parents simply went all along with her plans, especially my father, who was a real sucker for a good party. 

Anyone who's ever planned a big wedding knows that, along with moving, it's more often than not one of the hells that life offers us. There are the inevitable squabbles, the need to placate and appease, and the accommodation of the requests, $.02, and quirks of those who believe it is their day. 

Knowing that my future big-hearted mother-in-law was coming from a place of generosity of spirit and goodwill, I was intent on keeping the peace and wishing to make them -- and us -- happy.  Except for a few details, I put the entire wedding -- traditions and preparations -- in our parents' hands.  

Our mothers combined forces and orchestrated a beautiful wedding for us, perhaps the wedding with the finery and frou-frou that their post-war weddings lacked. They took care of the millions of details that I had neither time, nor inclination to make: dealing with caterers, florists, photographers, and seating arrangements, creating centerpieces and favors, and 901 of the 1001 gold cranes. 

For tradition's sake, I folded the last 100 cranes.  

My party-loving father delighted in being in charge of the cocktail hour with its drinks and heavy pûpû (appetizers), making sure he invited his business associates and all of his golf buddies.  My quiet but efficient future father-in-law, a trained engineer, put his finely honed logistical skills to good use.

A couple of days before our July 27, 1974 fairy tale wedding, DH and I Iiterally showed up by hopping  on a plane to the Big Island.

My family: Sandy, my older sister; Dad; Mom with Yuki, our sweetheart pet; Dino, my younger (and only) brother, yours truly, and Joan, my younger sister

As for tradition, I wore my $100 wedding ensemble with a bouquet of pink -- not white -- roses.  Looking dapper in his matching pink dress shirt that he purchased from Hilo's Men's Shop right before the wedding so he would match the rest of us, my father happily walked me down the aisle.  

Mom, yours truly, DH, and Dad

And as for DH, he  was the handsomest bridegroom ever in his sleek tux.

DH's brother, Kyle, yours truly, DH, his mother and father

We solemnly took our vows in his parents' church, making them very happy with big, fat nuptials. Then with my father at the helm of the cocktail party, we gorged on mirugai (geoduck), crabs, and clams flown in from Puget Sound, Washington; `opihi, the ultimate Hawaiian delicacy; an assortment of sashimi; rumaki and prosciutto-wrapped papaya slices. We partied heartily, then dined on an tasty array of local dinner cuisine.  

The wittiest of our friends, Gerald, Lloyd and Hal, shared our individual and joint histories with pep, heart and charm. Their delightful schtick cracked everyone up.  Our friend, Deanie, danced a lovely hula for us.  My cousin, Cyn, did a graceful modern dance. Then everyone crowded on to the floor and  danced the night away to the music of a hot local band, late into the wee hours of the morning.  

Our parents did a bang-up job of producing a tasteful, unpretentious wedding; today's wedding coordinators have nothing on them.  As it turned out, we did have our immediate family and our closest of friends with us for our special day -- and oh, a couple hundred of our parents' friends and relatives, business associates and cronies.

The wedding had something else, too: a tremendously sweet, infectious spirit. There was so much goodwill, warmth and affection, and I think the wedding guests were as charmed as we were with our parents' wedding -- for us.

For years thereafter, folks would exclaim, "Your wedding was so much fun!"  And then we'd recall and relive the memories of that joyful day with them. 

Yup, we had a BLAST!  

An addition to that list of things to do before I die:

Renew wedding vows at the Wai`oli Chapel.