Lisa & Gregory
Save the date
for the wedding of
May 2, 2026
Open Reception: 3pm-9pm
Walnut Grove Buddhist Church
14105 Pine St, Walnut Grove, CA 95690
We can’t wait to share this special day with you.
Open to all our family, friends, and community!
Walnut Grove
We are getting married at the Walnut Grove Buddhist Church, where Gregory’s (Great) Uncle “Tosh” Sakai was a longtime member and caretaker of the temple. We also adopted our guinea pigs, Elvis Parsley and GB King, from a guinea pig rescue in Walnut Grove. We felt that this historic temple would be a perfect place for a wedding.
Working the fishing booth with cousins (2018).
Cleanup after Obon (2025). This outdoor area will be used in the wedding.
Elvis Parsley and GB King
We adopted our piggies from Gardner’s Pig Pen, a volunteer-run 501(c)3 guinea pig rescue in Walnut Grove.
(2024) The pups learn from their patient mentor Abu. They hadn’t eaten veggies before coming home and watched Abu closely. Sometimes they invented their own ways of doing things - like sleeping on the houses or drinking upside down.
GB (Green Bean) King's first vegetable choice was green beans. GB has three colors of fur and a pointy nose. GB is always curious and vocal for food. He does things his own way - like drinking upside down. GB enjoys head scratches.
Elvis Parsley’s first vegetable choice was parsley. Elvis has two colors of fur and a rounder nose. Elvis is clever and observant. He invented roof sleeping and taught his brother. Elvis can be a little shy but enjoys cuddling.
(2015) The brothers celebrate their first birthday. Guinea pigs need company, but it can sometimes be hard for males to live in groups together. These two get along remarkably well. They’ll take food from each other but won’t fight about it.
Uncle Tosh Sakai
On family get-togethers, Uncle Tosh was famous for singing. Every summer growing up, Gregory’s extended family would get together for “Camp TWIN.” (TWIN is an acronym for Tanioka, Wada, Inokuchi, and Nakano.)
During these trips, the kids would have talent shows or put on programs. There was always one adult who would take a turn and sing old songs in Japanese or English. It’s possible that this was Gregory’s earliest or most formative exposure to Japanese music, which would take root much later with an interest in taiko and related musics. Either way, the famously extroverted Uncle Tosh made singing and performing look fun!
After adopting our guinea pigs in Walnut Grove, Gregory told Lisa about the family history and the two stopped by the temple. Later, when thinking of where to get married, this seemed like the perfect place. There was plenty of outdoor space for taiko, it would be supporting a historic temple and Japantown, and it would be a chance for the family to gather here again.
While we were planning for the wedding, Gregory found another surprising connection to Uncle Tosh. Gregory works as an archaeologist and fills out forms evaluating historic resources under the National Historic Preservation Act (1966). When researching Walnut Grove, Gregory found that Uncle Tosh had actually prepared the Nomination Form for the National Register of Historic Places for the Walnut Grove Gakuen Hall, a historic Japanese school and community center (recently acquired by the church).
By chance, how surprising it was to find that there have now been multiple generations, filling out these forms, preserving these memories. Through song and word, through living culture and written documents, we are our history, and we become it. It seems in many ways, we follow in your footsteps.
The Nokotsudo at the temple will be open to family during the wedding.
Toshio Sakai
Grace Toshiko Sakai
Music Selection
Christopher Tin is an alumni of Stanford Taiko and a composer who captures universal human and environmental themes through a blend of musical styles and traditions. As taiko players who often blend and explore different musical styles, we feel a connection with his work and musical sensibilities.
Processional: “Waloyo Yamoni - We Overcome the Wind”
Composer: Christopher Tin
“Waloyo Yamoni” uses text from a Lango (northern Uganda) rainmaking prayer and is the finale for Christopher Tin’s album “The Drop That Contained the Sea,” an album that meditates on themes of water and climate. The poetics of a drop containing the entire ocean comes from 13th century poet Rumi of the Sufi, Islam tradition, reflecting on deep interconnectivity, and how each individual contains the whole. We felt this was a perfect theme for our wedding in Walnut Grove, in that even a small town, in a sense, contains all of history, through our shared interdependence. We also felt it to be fitting for a town on the river, the flow of water connecting the land and people in an endless cycle.
Recessional: “Baba Yetu”
Composer: Christopher Tin
“Baba Yetu” is another piece by Christopher Tin that uses the Swahili text of the Lord’s Prayer in an uplifting and hopeful message for peace and human resilience. We find it beautiful and powerful that prayers from all over the world seek peace and good lives for all people. In the diversity of languages, music, cultures, and religions, there is commonality in the human experience and the possibility for peaceful coexistence. As a married couple, we join the countless generations of humanity that have strived for lives of love, kindness, and goodness. As one drop of the ocean, one cycle of life, we hope to continue forward this optimism for all of humanity.