My husband Steve and I are always shocked by the cost of today’s weddings. According to CNN, the average U.S. wedding bill has hit $30,000! Los Angeles averages $38,735, Santa Barbara is $44,214, and the most expensive spot is New York City at $86,916.
When Steve and I got married, neither of us had much money for a big wedding. However, my future mother-in-law came up with a list of one hundred of the Teraji family’s closest relatives, whom she insisted would be insulted if not invited to our wedding. I had four relatives.
So I invited 96 friends to balance out the guest list.
Fortunately, our friends and family pitched in to give us wedding gifts that made our nuptials more economical, such as personally decorating the reception hall for us. Friends played guitar and flute for the wedding, and others made my bridal bouquet of lavender roses. My mother bought my dream cake, which had a working lavender-colored fountain as a centerpiece.
As I opened the stack of wedding cards we took on our honeymoon, I was shocked to discover $20, $40, $50, $100 and even $500 tucked inside card after card. As I counted, I realized that not only were we not starting our marriage in debt, but we also were making a profit!
I never tire of retelling our wedding story. It has been a fascinating experience to marry into a Japanese-American family. Before marrying my husband, I had never tasted Japanese food, never heard of origami, or tried using chopsticks.
When Henry Hideo Teraji heard I was going to marry his son, his reaction was not what I had anticipated. For the very first time in Steve’s life, his father informed him that he expected him to marry a Japanese woman.
“It’s a little late for that dad. We—we’re already engaged,” Steve stuttered.
He can’t be serious, I thought with shock.
“I will line up a group of Japanese women for you to choose from,” my future father-in-law proclaimed.
“What would I have to say to these women?” Steve asked his father. “I don’t even speak Japanese!”
I sat down to write a letter to my future father-in-law. I listed all the reasons why I would be the best wife for his son. I reminded him his son and I had gone to the same junior high, high school, and community college; that both our fathers had graduated from the same high school; that we had studied in the same classes and worked on our homework together; that we speak the same language; that we both grew up on the north side of the same town and had been friends for 11 years. I said that no one would ever understand his son the way I do.
In his indirect Japanese style, Henry never said a word to anyone about the letter. We never discussed it. But from that day forward, he smiled at me every time we met.
That was that.
My Japanese in-laws and my English-Irish-Welsh-Scottish-German-Swedish parents became the best of pals, spending every holiday and attending all family functions together.
On January 12, we celebrated our 24th wedding anniversary. Looking back on our wedding, we wouldn’t change a thing, and having a multi-cultural experience with all our friends there to share their own talents made our wedding even more meaningful than any amount of money we could have ever spent.
In our usual style this year, we decided to explore closer to home and make our anniversary celebration a “staycation.”
In Morgan Hill, we discovered a gem previously unknown to us: the Odeum Restaurant. It is located on Depot Street in a wonderfully repurposed historic building called The Granary, a certified LEED Gold building, which means it is a high performing self-sustaining “green” building. The Granary is home to other businesses as well, including the Morgan Hill Times.
As you enter the restaurant, you are pleasantly welcomed by a cozy courtyard decorated with sparkling white lights and rows of flickering lanterns on the steps leading up to the door. Inside, the work of local artists is featured on the walls. Michelin star Chef Calisi combines Roman and Greek cuisine with Spanish influences, featuring grass-fed beef and local organic vegetables, adding his own creative and fun flair.
The restaurant boasts an on-site garden and orchard, used to provide the freshest herbs, vegetables and fruit. Customers enjoy a walk through the on-site gardens and often spot the chef harvesting the herbs and vegetables that will soon become their dinner.
With all the money we saved by discovering the treasures right here in our own backyard, we already have a head start on saving for our 25th wedding anniversary next year. Maybe it’s time to splurge!
One 1991 wedding: $1,500.
One anniversary close to home: $100.
Twenty-four years together: priceless!
