He did it! He gave me a beautiful engagement ring and asked me to marry him.  We are planning to get married in August this year.  The thought of planning a wedding was so exciting to me at first, but when I started to really think about our situation, living in Japan and our families unable to be here to celebrate with us, it became a bit stressful.  Not only that, but Japanese weddings are so different from how we celebrate in Canada.  How can I celebrate and host a party that will feel like a wedding reception to us, myself a Canadian and my fiancé a Brit, and for our native guests too?  I have many decisions to make, and am aiming to create a reception that reflects who we are and where we live which will entail Canadian, British and Japanese ideas all uniquely making their way into our special day.

As I mentioned, Japanese celebrate weddings very differently.  It all starts with the engagement when parents of the couple meet for a formal dinner and exchange gifts.  Some gifts include the engagement ring, fish, money and sake. Sake is often exchanged and drank at important meetings and events.  Fish represents longevity and children.  It is given to each other in hopes of the couple being together for a long time and producing many children. The couple also must choose to have either a traditional-style wedding which takes place at a Shinto shrine wearing a traditional wedding kimono, or a western-style wedding with the bride wearing a white wedding dress and the groom wearing a tuxedo, which takes place in a church or chapel, sometimes performed by a foreigner “acting” as a priest.  It is a novelty to have a foreigner marry the couple.  A few of my friends actually are the ‘priest’ at weddings in southern Japan and are compensated greatly for it.

At a Japanese-style wedding, only the immediate family accompanies the couple to the shrine.  Everyone else is invited to the reception, which they call the wedding party.  Some guests wear a kimono, while others wear formal clothes.  Weddings are much more formal in Japan than in Canada.  Women usually wear a black or dark dress with a shawl, while men wear a suit and tie.  Unlike in Canada where the bride has a maid of honor and bridesmaid and the groom a best man and ushers, no attendants are involved in the wedding ceremony in Japan.

At a western-style wedding, the bride wears a white bridal gown and the groom wears a tuxedo.  Many guests are invited to the church and a reception takes place soon afterwards.  Pictures are taken throughout the day, but the professional pictures are actually taken weeks before and are on display for all to admire.  When the bride arrives at the reception, she may change into a kimono and do a candle-lighting ceremony.  While the guests are seated, she will once again change her dress but this time into a cocktail dress, and once more during the two-hour reception she may change into yet again another cocktail dress.  It is not uncommon for the bride to change three or four times throughout the day.   All these dresses are rented from the wedding planner’s company.  You would think renting so many dresses would cut down on costs but it is quite expensive and many brides pay $10,000 to rent all the dresses they require for their special day.

Most receptions are held at a wedding hall or hotel.  The majority of couples go to a wedding hall and hire a planner who takes care of everything from the invitations, color scheme, and flowers to the decorating and cleaning up.  This service is quite expensive, but it seems like most people are clueless when it comes to planning a wedding so they naturally go to a planner.  Wedding guests don’t have it easy, financially, either.  Each guest is expected to give $300, and a couple invited to a wedding $500.  It is bad luck to give the newly weds an equal amount of bills since the money can be equally divided between the newly weds and the purpose is for the couple to share the money.  The gift amount climbs higher depending on the relationship to the couple: siblings may give over $1000 to the couple; parents also contribute greatly.  The money goes toward paying for the wedding.  In return for being so generous, the newly weds will give a gift to the wedding guests.  This gift can be anything from an expensive bottle of sake or a cake from a famous local shop to glass wear.  Recently, couples have been giving their guests the option of choosing their own return gift from a catalogue.

At the reception, speeches are made, a meal is eaten, and the bride reads a thank you/goodbye letter to her parents.  In Canada, the bride is welcomed into the groom’s family and vice versa, but in Japan, the bride leaves her family to join the husband’s family.  This isn’t as strict as it was years ago, but the final letter to her parents is still often read.  Friends and family sometimes provide entertainment by singing a song or doing a short skit.  After the reception, close friends are invited to a “ni ji kai,” a second party or after party.  This is usually where they let loose and the alcohol flows and everyone sings karaoke and plays silly games.  Some couples who love to party also have a san ji kai, a third party (after after party) where the party continues into the wee hours of the morning. 

Another big difference between Japanese and Canadian weddings is the important role the match maker has in Japan.  Many people still use match makers to find their partner.  At the wedding, the match maker is active during the reception by making sure everyone is having a good time, and inviting close friends to the ni ji kai.  Match makers are highly respected.

A recent trend for many couples is to have a restaurant wedding party because of economic times and newly weds wanting many friends to celebrate with them. Sometimes, the traditionally expected money gift can scare away those who don’t have the money to give, resulting in a declined invitation to the wedding.  On invitations to restaurant weddings, a seating fee is requested rather than the usual steep monetary gift. This seating fee is usually between $80-$100/person.   Restaurant weddings also tend to be slightly more casual.  At a traditional wedding, parents of the newly weds usually pay for the wedding, and the money gifts are usually given directly to the parents to help offset the cost of the expensive celebration. But at restaurant party, the seating fee goes to pay for the meal so the couple doesn’t have to spend too much money on the party.

So, as you can see, the Japanese style has its similarities to a Canadian wedding but has many more differences. My fiancé and I have decided to have a restaurant style reception. My husband-to-be will wear a tuxedo and I will wear a beautiful sage green bridesmaid dress.  Rather than hiring a planner, I will be the planner.  We will sign papers at city hall during the week, and on the weekend the reception will be held at a nice restaurant and a reasonable seating fee will be politely requested rather than expecting our friends to pay $300 to celebrate our special day.  Many of our guests will travel 2 hours to the city in which we now live but I hope they still have energy for the ni ji kai!

Japan has greatly influenced both our lives and I’m grateful to have met so many wonderful people.  Living in a foreign country has its ups and downs but one of the ups is the strong friendships formed with the locals.  They share their culture and lives with us so I hope on our special day we can do the same and show them some traditions celebrated in our countries.

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