Weddings in Japan:

A report on Japanese weddings and Japanese wedding ceremonies

The other weekend I had two wedding to go to, one on Saturday, one on Sunday. Both brides were former students of mine, from my days at ALEX, a two-year English and travel school. Since weddings in Japan are such a unique affair, I thought I'd record the events for readers, the better to propagate understanding between East and West.

Japan has been influenced culturally by nearly every nation on earth at some time or another (okay, well, maybe Tonga hasn't contributed to them much), and as a result, their customs regarding such things as marriage can come in many varied forms.

Historically, Japan has had two main influences, Buddhism and Shinto, and rather than have wars to see which side would win, Japan decided to be dual-platform, like Macromedia Director, running on Mac and Windows. Japanese tend to turn to shinto for events related to life (weddings, celebration of a baby's birth or the New Year) and buddhism for events related to death (funerals, remembrance of one's ancestors).

This happy formula collapses when you get to modern Japan. Just as words like "chic" become popular among English-speakers because France is so, well, chic, Japanese often turn to America and Europe for new themes to add freshness to their lives. Thus, the modern Japanese wedding can be a total mix of anything you can imagine.

The are four parts to a Japanese wedding. The first is the most important to a basically atheist country like this, which is the registering as a married couple (seki o ireru). When you register to be married, you are married, and that date is the day you celebrate your wedding anniversary, no matter what day got "got married" on. The "ceremony" (shiki) is the actual ceremony where you are married, either in a shinto ceremony (probably rare in Tokyo, but quite common where I am), in a western traditional ceremony, and so on. The "wedding party" (hiroen) is the reception, and is a big to-do where all your friends, people who you work with, people who are close to you and so on, join you to celebrate your wedding. It's usually two hours in length, and always very hard on the new couple, who have to bow and accept drinks and say thank you to others constantly during this time. Finally, there is the "second party" (nijikai) where some members will gather at a bar or "snack" (a "snack" is a kind of pub, yes, it's a stupid name) and sing karaoke and drink some more. (You can continue the parties til dawn if you like.)

Saturday's wedding was Miki Hosoya, a girl I'd taught at ALEX. A very pretty girl, she was a good student and always fun. Here is the document of her wedding...

Here's Kaori, coming to pick me up in her yellow Nissan Cube (limited edition Yellow). Doesn't she look lovely?

This is Miffy the Rabbit, Kaori's favorite character these days. It seems that some evil person has sewn Miffy's mouth shut with surgical thread.

You may know that, at a Japanese wedding, the guests bring $200, $300, or much more depending on their age and relationship to the couple, as a gift. This gift from everyone offsets the huge cost of the wedding, and is standard practice in Japan. For that money, you get a bag of presents, usually chopsticks, something good to eat to take home to the family, and for some reason, furikake, which is sliced, dried fish that looks, to Americans at least, like fish food. (It is very good on tofu though.)

Weddings are a huge market in Japan, and companies that perform them know how to make everything come off right. Handlers hover behind the bride and groom, telling them when to stand, sit, bow, etc. Here, the girls dressed as French Maids are the silent cast members who will help make the wedding a success (as well as serve drinks and food). 

What follows is a very structured procession. First, the boss of the husband, who is in the highest place of honor at the wedding, stands gives a long speech. This is a big Japanese customs, called aisatsu ("greeting"), and must always be performed by a very old man who speaks just a little too long. After he sits down, the wife's boss (nearly always the man she just inconvenienced by quitting, since all women quit their jobs when they get married here) stands and does the same thing. Some friends, teachers, or family members also give little mini-speeches (see next page for mine).

The food was elegant and extravagant, of course. Usually weddings feature lots of Japanese food (the really Japanese stuff, I'm talking about eating flowers and stuff), but this place was a mix. Here, the kanji kotobuki which is Japanese for "live long, and prosper" (it is! I'm serious!) is written in gold on a kamaboko steamed fish cake (it sound tastier when you don't write it in English).

The happy couple. You can't see it, but this is a dekichatta kekkon, or a wedding brought about by the coming of a wee bairn. Miki is 5 months pregnant.

 A fun occasion, friends of the groom and bride usually sing, do comedy numbers, parody Pink Lady, anything. Here, four girls dressed as nurses sing a Morning Musume number.

Wedding receptions are a time of zaniness. Here, they blindfolded the groom and had him shake hands with five different people, one of them his new wife. Then they had him try to guess which one it was  

Now, Japanese form kicks in again. The bride and groom both thank their own parents for raising them to this point in their lives, and promise that they'll be happy from now on with their new partners. They say yoroshiku onegai shimasu to their new parents, and the bride must cry, overcome with emotion. Everyone in the room must also cry, if possible.

During this moving speech, the parents stand in the back of the room. The parents say a few words, and the couple departs the room.