Here Comes the Bride

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. An exception to the rule was last weekend when I attended a Japanese wedding for the first time. Come to think of it, it was my first wedding anywhere, yet another thing that I have done for the first time ten thousand miles from home. The bride was the office worker at my school, and the groom the social studies teacher at my friend’s, so we were invited by the umbrella of our respective schools. Everyone at each school received an invitation so it was kind of hard to refuse us.
The wedding took place at a multi-purpose party hall where they hold coming-of-age ceremonies, end-of-year parties as well as other happy events, located outside a “major” city with a backdrop of a rocky cliff, magnificent foliage and rice fields below. We arrived by a specially commissioned bus and met up with the other 70-odd people who turned up, co-workers, family and friends. Being the only gaijin (foreigners), my friend and I didn’t want to be the first to enter, unsure of the protocol and not wanting to stick out more than we already did. To tell the truth, my friend looks and speaks Japanese, but most there knew the scary truth: she is actually from California. Finally, the great mass of humanity started making their way into the hall, so we obediently followed.
The first stop was reception, where we received programs and gave our gifts and compliments to friends of the bride and groom. The program consisted of a quasi-yearbook, complete with one-on-one interviews, notes of congratulations from their students, a menu in French and Japanese and a seating chart. As for the gifts, the thing to give is money, much like a bar mitzvah, and nearly everybody did so. I previously procured a special congratulatory envelope complete with bow, and I deposited a crisp, new 1-man bill inside, roughly equivalent to eighty U.S. dollars. It may sound like a lot for a person I barely know, but the average at such festive occasions tends to be thrice that amount so I actually felt a bit cheap. My friend chose to give a book instead, a coffee table volume saturated with gorgeous pictures of various eras of jazz by a world famous photographer. Still, she worried as she held her gift in her lap, anxiously waiting the current moment before finally presenting the present as the newlyweds were exiting the hall.
The ceremony itself was short, and not particularly memorable. There was an announcer who acted as a sort of DJ, letting the guests know what was going on and supplying some biographical information on the bride and groom. The ceremony was Western but secular, lacking any element of either the Japanese native religion Shinto or Christianity. The couple read their vows, they received their rings from a five-year-old ring-bearer who didn’t look too pleased to be the center of attention, and then they signed their names on a paper along with witnesses, which presumably meant they were now a married couple. Except for the English teacher next to me who falls to tears at almost any occasion, there was hardly a tear shed in the house, and then we moved on to the grub. We ate steak, sushi, pasta, pizza, and of course, the wedding cake which was a simple, but delicious blend of cream and fruits.
I was pleasantly pleased by the presence of gifts on my seat when I arrived, which were of an interesting variety. The first one I noticed was coconut donuts, which I promptly munched down as soon as I got home. The other items were more Japanese, fish flakes used to flavor rice or miso soup and two ceramic cups, handmade, fired and glazed to give off a beautiful blue sheen. These are the same type of things I attempt to make every week at my pottery class with decidedly limited success. On the way out, we got cookies from Britain. Now that they are married, they will be known as the Shintani’s, the husband’s name, same as in the West. They will take one day off of work, and then go on a honeymoon during winter vacation probably within the country. Australia and (formerly) Bali are also popular destinations, but they are usually shorter than American ones.
Over the course of the last couple of days I have learned a great deal about Japanese weddings, which are as varied as American ones. My friend had his in a Shinto shrine; he was wearing a hakama and his bride, a kimono, both traditional Japanese costumes. Actually, over the course of the ceremony, she wore several; the changing of clothes is an essential element of traditional weddings. The service was ordained by a Shinto priest who gave them the rites of marriage. Others have a wedding in a church, the service conducted by a minister, who is more often than not, a Westerner with no religious affiliation who is paid simply for his ability to give the ordination in English. As a matter of fact, I am fully qualified for the position, which pays a hefty hundred dollars per hour of work. However, regardless of the financial award, I have no desire to play the part of a Catholic priest at a Japanese wedding. Some of my fellow English teachers feel differently. Who knows? If I am in sufficiently desperate economic straits one day, I may follow their lead.

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