If you have seen any Japanese movies with weddings you probably have the beautiful image of a woman with many layers of Bridal Kimono being led by her husband and escorted by her family walking through a shrine with a big red or white parasol over her head as she walks. The beautiful colors and solemn looks on the faces of the bridal party are peaceful and traditional. Straight-faced wedding photos taken outside standing in rows will be the evidence of this sacred union.
However, in Japan, the traditional wedding is almost ancient history. The western style wedding is making incredible headway here. It has not just reduced the number of traditional weddings, but almost devoured it with brides in search of taffeta and chiffon who are ready to abandon any ounce of tradition when it comes to their big day. Hey, every girl wants to feel special, and I understand that, but to lose this tradition is a little sad to me.
The reasons that are given for why brides and husbands choose to do a non-traditional Japanese wedding, or, in better case scenarios do both styles of wedding, is simply that they think the Kimono is too uncomfortable. They want to look like a princess in a white dress.
It is interesting for sure, and I have many friends that have dabbled in this industry in Japan as 'priests' for wedding ceremonies.
Yes, I said 'priests'. That is the catch. These western style weddings are exactly that; styled to feel like a traditional Christian Church wedding. The man who stands at the front 'alter' is dressed like a Catholic Priest and holds a bible, which he proceeds to read from during the ceremony with three or four women on the side of the 'alter' as quasi-nun quasi-alter boys quasi-choir members. They sing throughout the breaks and transitions in the chapel portion of the ceremony. It is very interesting, but to me, being Catholic... something feels incredibly wrong about the idea of a Fake church with a fake priest performing a fake Christian wedding ceremony. So strange ( and in case you are wondering, here they do not have the Catholic Aerobics as many people call them. We do stand, sit, stand, sit but there is lack of kneeling. haha).
I was recently lucky enough to get invited to this exact type of wedding for someone close to me that was getting married. I felt so honored to be invited, especially because I was going to be the only foreign person at the party. The church experience was as described above, but after we all lined the stairs and waited for the bride and groom to come down the stairs where we proceeded to throw rose petals on them and snap photos. Then, as a group, we all took a giant photo. The photographer was very funny, even though it was all in Japanese, I still understood him and thought he was very entertaining.
After this we headed into a courtyard for champagne and some things to eat and we were then led into a ballroom where we took our seats for the remainder of the evening. The bride and groom appeared and we all listened to their speeches. At Japanese weddings, many people give speeches. All of the formal dinner is filled with talk and banter between the guests and an MC with a mic. We had a 6 course meal that was probably some of the most delicious food I have eaten in a long long time. We started with Fois Gras over a puree of some type of Japanese potato with an amazing glaze and proceeded through a soup course, salad, fish course, meat course and on to desert... which we will get to in just a moment.
After about 30 minutes of the wedding party, the bride disappeared to go off and change dresses. That is another thing. In Japan, at western style weddings, brides change dresses sometimes as often as three of four times. They don't just change the dress, the make-up, the hair, everything.
When she arrived again at the party she was in a Bright Red floor length gown. She looked amazing in both of her dresses, even though this is not something I am used to seeing at a wedding. She looked amazing.
All of a sudden, they announced that they had a surprise for their guests and disappeared. After about 10 minutes the MC announced that they were ready and the curtains lifted and the glass doors into the courtyard swung open to reveal our bride and groom holding slices of wedding cake, the groom dressed as a chef complete with coat and hat. Behind them was the most elaborate dessert buffet I have ever seen in my life. In the distance you had a perfect night view of Kobe Harborland and Mosaic with a brightly colored Ferris wheel lit up.
We went outside and took photos with the bride and sampled some of the many desserts, from strawberry shortcake wedding cake to crem brulee and even a pink chocolate fountain and Coldstone-esq ice cream stand. It was delectable.
After we proceeded back to our seats we watched a slideshow of the bride and groom. They had been dating since they were only Junior High School students and the photos were even of them back then. It was very touching and our whole table couldn't help but tear up at the sweetness of the photos. There was even a photo of all of us together dressed up for Halloween! How embarrassing! I was wearing a Hot Pink Ballerina costume. haha
We got to see a presentation from the children to their parents and heard their parents speak kind words about the opposite person. It was really beautiful and I was lucky enough to have Miho there with me as a great translator so I didn't miss what was going on the whole time. :)
When we left and said goodbye we were handed a photo that was taken of all of us together earlier that day! WOW! Talk about fast photos.
All in all, I was very happy to be a part of someone else's special day. Experiencing a wedding in Japan might not feel like it is really worth the 30,000 Yen you give the couple as a traditional wedding gift, but for me, it was worth more than that.
