Love, Hawaiian Style
Musician and entrepreneur Noli Bravo brings Hawaiian-style weddings to Japan
TOKYO - On a sunny Sunday in December, Noli Bravo stood on a dais at the edge of a small pond fed by a cascading waterfall. Over his black minister's robes, he wore an uli uli necklace, a maile lei and a haku lei on his head. Facing Bravo were the guests, who sat on cane chairs inside an open-air chapel. In the background, a three-piece band in Hawaiian shirts played, and a pair of hula dancers gently swayed. The chapel's rear doors opened and the Japanese bride and groom, both wearing white, slowly walked down the aisle. Bravo greeted the couple with a Hawaiian blessing: "Ka malamalama o ke akua. E hoopuni mai ia kakou." Thus began an authentic Hawaiian wedding service - with a twist. The couple was actually a pair of actors taking part in a bridal fair. And although the lush setting resembled a Hawaiian resort, the event really took place at the Hotel New Otani Makuhari, situated within a huge conference facility outside Tokyo. Offering Hawaiian-style weddings in Japan is the brainchild of Bravo, a banker-turned-musician-turned-wedding celebrant and entrepreneur who grew up in Waimanalo and has been in Japan, on and off, for more than a decade. In December 2002, he founded Hawaiian Great Love LLC, a bridal services startup offering Japanese couples Hawaiian weddings right at home. Bravo's foray into the wedding business came in a roundabout way. He worked for a Citicorp affiliate in Honolulu before becoming a professional musician. During a stint in Japan as a gospel singer for Christian-style weddings, he was encouraged to join the ranks of foreigners hired to preside over marriage services as "ministers" (most are not ordained). Bravo did it for about a year, but became disillusioned by what he describes as an assembly-line approach to matrimony. "Every time I felt a little bad," Bravo says. "There would be a 25-minute ceremony, then 10 minutes of break, and the next couple would come in. It was just about business."
The decision to strike out on his own came when Bravo visited the New Otani. Seeing the chapel, the pond and the waterfall, he knew he had found the perfect site to stage weddings that he thought would be both appealing and meaningful to Japanese couples. The hotel is now actively pursuing customers. A ceremony with 50 guests costs 1.5 million yen, or just under $14,000. Bravo concedes that the price is steep compared to the roughly $300 to $800 some travel agencies charge for packaged wedding tours to Hawaii, but he points out that such tours involve just the bride and groom, or a few friends and relatives at most. Hawaii has been the top destination for Japanese couples marrying overseas for some years, and currently draws about half of all such couples, according to Watabe Wedding Corp., Japan's largest overseas wedding planner. Yet Bravo sees a niche in catering to people who are attracted to the idea of tying the knot in Hawaii, but are constrained by work demands, the desire to hold a large wedding or concerns about security and terrorism. "I'm really optimistic that we're going to create some waves in the wedding business here," says Bravo. "The bridal market is looking for something unique, and I think we have something to offer." Dawn Matus is an American journalist who has lived in Japan since the late 1980s. She can be reached at dmatusjapan@yahoo.com |
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