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A Case Study of Guam's First Hotel Wedding Chapel

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A Case Study of Guam's First Hotel Wedding Chapel South Asian Journal of Tourism and Heritage (2010), Vol. 3, No. 1 Japanese Overseas Weddings in Guam: A Case Study of Guam’s First Hotel Wedding Chapel FRED R. SCHUMANN* and CHARLENE AMADO** *Fred R. Schumann, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Global Resources Management at the University of Guam. **Charlene Amado, Research Student on Tourism and Hospitality Management at the University of Guam ABSTRACT Wedding ceremonies in many societies traditionally involve a gathering of family and friends. In Japan these wedding ceremonies are often extravagant, costing millions of yen and have guest lists ranging from 50 to 200 attendees. Traditionally, Japanese weddings follow the Shinto type of wedding ceremony and are held at a Shinto shrine; however, the newer generation of Japanese couples has the option of arranging a western-style ceremony, derived from Christian traditions. Shinto shrines have been altered into chapels and can often be found in hotels. With today’s more convenient traveling options and the high expense of domestic wedding ceremonies, couples now look to overseas weddings to pare down costs while desiring to have an intimate and exotic wedding ceremony. Seeing this as a promising trend in the tourism industry, hotels located in the U.S. territory of Guam, a popular Japanese tourist destination located in the western Pacific, have adopted the concept of destination weddings. With the success of the first hotel chapel for weddings, Guam now has several hotel chapels on island. This paper will examine the first wedding chapel on Guam--how and when it began and how it had served as a venue for overseas weddings. It will also discuss the chapel’s challenges and successes and its life cycle within its years of operation. KEYWORDS : Guam, Weddings, Destination Weddings, Japanese overseas tourists, Hotel Chapels, Shinto INTRODUCTION The wedding industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, estimated at between 70 and 150 billion dollars in the United States alone (Stephenson and Lockwood, 2006:14) Wedding productions are becoming pricier in countries where coverage of celebrity and unconventional weddings in the popular presses highlight the current media emphasis upon the wedding as a spectacular, within-reach consumer fantasy (Boden 2001). Most traditional weddings require expensive decorative details and guests accommodations. As weddings are special events, they call for many family members and friends as guests, bringing costs up to host them. Weddings in Japan are becoming more commercialized with new events devised by the commercial industry. These new events express values relevant to the social relations being created by the weddings as ritual and have contributed to its popular acceptance (Edwards 1987:52). With prices increasing and couples less willing to spend over their budgets, other wedding options are being considered in wedding markets like Japan. One popular and often more affordable alternative is an overseas wedding ceremony. Many countries have already adapted to this trend. In particular the Micronesian island destination of Guam now has several wedding chapels of its own, mostly located in its larger hotels with over 200 rooms. However, before hotel chapels and wedding production companies were established on the island, this lucrative niche market was not being served. This case study will examine Japanese overseas weddings and address the following © 2010 South Asian Journal of Tourism and Heritage 174 FRED R. SCHUMANN and CHARLENE AMADO questions: How did the hotel wedding business start for Guam? How has the business evolved? And what are some of the challenges these businesses on Guam face for the future? TRADITIONAL JAPANESE WEDDINGS Traditional Japanese weddings follow the Shinto type of wedding ceremony and are held at a Shinto Shrine. This practice is changing in modern Japanese society. A generation ago, 70% or more Japanese were married with Shinto rites, according to Kenji Ishii, sociologist of religion at Kokugakuin University in Tokyo. Today, Christian-style weddings are in fashion, even though few Japanese identify themselves as Christians. Shinto marriages now constitute fewer than 20% of the total (French 2001). Even the Shinto marriages have undergone a transformation. The Shinto wedding style is now incorporated with a western style wedding ceremony, which can be considered as the Japanese Contemporary commercial wedding style (Goldstein-Gidoni, 2000). With the discussion of contemporary weddings, it is important to note that in Japan weddings and religious affiliation do not take on the significance today that they take in western societies. In Japan, studies of religiousness are not as data-rich and until recently it has been nearly impossible to know what percentage of Japanese individuals claims to be Shinto, Buddhist, Christian, or a member of a “new religion” (Roemer, 2007:21-22). There is only a small percentage of Japanese who claim religious affiliation with a specific religion even though many Japanese practice traditions of different religions non-exclusively. There are options available for couples to perform a wedding ceremony in Japan. There is the Christian wedding that is held in a church, the Buddhist style that is performed at the temple, and the civil wedding is an option as well which are held in public offices (Edwards, 1989). These Shinto wedding consists of intensive preparation, especially for the bride, a small gathering and briefing with the bride and groom’s respective family members, photo taking, and the ceremony itself. The wedding day begins with the bride and other wedding participants at the beauty shop. The bride is required to be at the beauty shop at about two and a half hours prior to the wedding ceremony. The beauty shop is responsible for dressing the bride, the groom, and other wedding participants in Japanese attire. The bride traditionally takes the longest and arrives the earliest as it takes a lot of time to dress her up in the traditional Japanese attire consisting of an elaborate kimono, heavy make-up, wig and head covering. This process is extremely complicated and time-consuming. The groom on the other hand arrives about an hour prior to the ceremony, about the same time that guests starts to arrive. The attire of the groom and the other participants are less elaborate compared to that of the bride and thus requires less time for preparation. After all the preparation at the beauty shop, the bride and the groom are led to two separate rooms to meet their relatives. This is a short gathering and it allows 30 or more close relatives to be briefed on their duties for the wedding ahead. This gathering is deemed important especially for participants who are not completely aware or knowledgeable of the proceedings of a wedding. When this short gathering and briefing is over the families, including the bride and groom, proceeds to the photo studio. Professional photos are then taken. Photographs to be taken include the bride in her different costumes, the bride and groom together, and of their families. After all necessary poses and photographs are taken, everyone is led to the Shinto Shine for the wedding ceremony. The ceremony itself is short and simple. The ceremony is performed before a Shinto sanctuary and it is presided by a Shinto priest who first holds the purification service of all who are present. After the ritual, the bride and groom are to read an oath to keep them faithful and obedient to each other in during their marriage. The Shinto ceremony now integrated with the Western style wedding includes two Western practices. These practices are the exchange of rings and the recitation of wedding vows, which are prepared in advance. (Goldstein-Gidoni, 2000). Following the wedding ceremony is the wedding reception. The reception is the part of the wedding where the Western style is shown and followed. This is considered the highlight of the wedding JAPANESE OVERSEAS WEDDINGS IN GUAM 175 day. Here, the number of guests attending increases. In addition to the family members and other wedding participants, colleagues and friends become part of the celebration. Prior to the reception, these additional guests, although they were not at the wedding ceremony itself, they were able to watch the whole thing on video screens that are placed at the lobby. The reception follows a very strict schedule lasting in exactly only two hours. It consists of a mixture of Western and Japanese traditional activities. Each activity or performance is elaboratively and dramatically presented. When the bride and groom make their entrance they are dramatically announced into the reception. The reception is when the bride and groom changes out of their Japanese attire and change into their western outfits. The bride changes into several different outfits requiring her to leave the room for every change. The groom, on the other hand, only changes once into his Western tuxedo. The reception consists of dramatic entrances, speeches by the main guests and a few ‘mini- dramas’ or performances designed by the wedding industry, including the cake-cutting ceremony and the candle service. Among the dramatic scenes, the entrances of bride and groom deserve special attention, for the bride leaves the room at least two and sometimes three times to change her outfit (and have a photo taken before she returns). Each of these entrances – for which the groom joins the bride – is highlighted by special effects. Open speeches are giving at the reception, followed by Western-style performances including the cake cutting ceremony. The newlywed couple cuts the elaborately decorated cake that is made out of wax with a cake knife. The next part is the toasts cueing the guests to relax and have their meals and drinks. This is an opportunity for the bride to leave the room for one of her outfit changes. She leaves a few more times later into the reception for more outfit change and the groom accompanies her entrance every time.
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