In the late eighties and early nineties Rich Lasner was a Senior Guitar Designer at Yamaha. Together with Leo Knapp who was a guitar builder and Ken Dapron he formed Yamaha Guitar Development in North Hollywood. They worked with Jackie Minakuchi who worked for Yamaha in Japan who had a staff of 4-5 men to translate the designs, that Lasner did on paper, to the computer. To test the communications and translation issues between North Hollywood and the engineering department in Japan it was decided to design two guitars. One would be a strat model guitar but done according to how they thought it should be done. The other model was to be an evolution of a Les Paul model. It was just a test, so there was no plan to release these models at first. But eventually the strat model was released and became the well known Yamaha Pacifica model. The Les Paul model is less known but is called the Yamaha Weddington. Weddington after the name of the street where Yamaha Guitar Development was situated in North Hollywood.
The Yamaha Weddingtons were made in the most high-class manner possible, with highly figured flame maple tops, bodies made of Honduran Mahogany (see advertisement), sculpted neck heels and were produced from 1990 until 1995. There were three models. The Yamaha Weddington Custom, Classic and Special. The Special was the most basic model and had no carved maple top. All of the Weddingtons have made in the USA DiMarzio humbuckers with individual volume and tone controls and a five-way switch that allows coil tapping.
