"I heard somewhere it's because an overseas wedding is a lot less expensive than a traditional Japanese wedding."

That could well be, Sandra. I've heard Wakana describe a Japanese wedding and it is something I would hate to be in. Gifts are distributed to the guests. There is a whole series of dresses and gowns for the bride which she changes throughout the ceremony and the reception. There are limousines and caterers and hall rental and lots of other little details that cost big bucks. It may well be that the price of a hotel and plane ticket and rental of the morning suit and gown are cheaper.

I am going to start a thread with an historical question but I might as well ask it here.

As part of my class on Pacific Island Literature I am reading an excerpt of A Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym by Edgar Allen Poe. It is Poe's only full length novel and, apparently it gets rather strange.

In the excerpt I am reading there is a point where two men make a rope out of their pocket handkerchiefs and use it to descend a cliff face. Poe describes at one point how one of the sailors tied the "rope" around his waste and then lowered himself several feet down the cliff! That is a hell of a POCKET handkerchief!

I have also learned, earlier and from a different source, that Chamorro women liked to get the handkerchiefs of sailors. The would tie them around their wastes to hide their nakedness.

So here is my question: How big was a pocket handkerchief in the first half of the 19th Century?