When we first got engaged in August 2019, I was so excited to plan a wedding with my best friend (corny to say I know). I knew the designer of the dress I wanted and had a good idea of the venue and by October we had both secured. In the next few months, we discussed our family backgrounds and what we would want to incorporate into the wedding.
This part was proving to be difficult as it seemed there were not many couples that did a mixed wedding of the Japanese and American Cultures. Even though Shin was very Americanized, as he had grown up states side, I knew his parents were more traditional and I wanted to honor them in some way. Everywhere I looked it was a one or other type of wedding, there was no combining which was frustrating. After a discussion with Shin, we decided we wanted to fold 1,000 origami cranes as this is a symbol of longevity, praying for peace and overcoming difficulties in the Japanese culture. This was of course only decided upon once we knew that the older generation on Shin’s side would be okay with this, as it could remind them of harder times during war.
Everything was going smoothly in the planning and then the pandemic hit. As 2020 continued we soon realized our dream wedding was not going to happen. Thus, our journey to find a safe elopement began. We were both okay if we weren’t getting married due to safety reasons but if there was a way, we still wanted to honor our original day.
We found many couples doing zoom weddings which we loved and started researching how to do this. After many days of research, we knew that putting on a zoom wedding on our own was going to be difficult and we didn’t want to stop in the middle of us exchanging vows to help with a connection issue. Then we found Simply Eloped.
This company was exactly what we were looking for! They would take care of setting up the meeting, technical issue, and even help our family and friend with their connection issues. The best part… They could record the wedding for us. We were sold. Now the only thing left was to figure out where to do this. Originally, we were thinking, the courthouse but then quickly realized this was not us. Then we thought our house; we didn’t have to worry about safety (as it was just us), though I would feel like we would have to deep clean our entire house and move furniture to create something that resembled a wedding ceremony.
After talking with my mom a few times, she brought up her house. At first, I said no as I didn’t want to intrude, and we would have the same problems as we would here. Then she mentioned her backyard. Shin and I thought about this. We already had twinkle lights and lanterns we were going to use for our original ceremony. Plus, she had a waterfall, A WATERFALL! That was it, we found our elopement spot.
A few more months went by and the California wildfires were now putting the elopement at risk. We were at the week of now and the skies were gray with smoke. You could hardly go outside without feeling like you couldn’t breathe because of how dense the smoke-filled air was. I couldn’t believe it, we got through one obstacle to find another on the other side. Though this is the epitome of life huh?
It was finally the day I was going to marry my best friend. Shin had gone camping with his Brother who was officiating our marriage and I had my maid of honor with me to help with the kids and my hair. We stop for coffee and pick up the wedding cake from Ettore’s and heading to my mom’s house. I stayed in my mom’s bedroom getting ready once Shin got there, which was a little killer for me. On the other side of a wall was Shin, whom I hadn’t seen in 3 days since he was camping. The next time I was seeing him was when I walk up to him to become his wife.
The time came to see him. There was still filled with smoke (though not as dense near the ground); it wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t glamorous, but it was us. We had our family there both on zoom and in person, my maid of honor and our photographer (social distanced the entire time). It was better than we could have ever hoped for.
