Tomoko and Iyo

The bride and the groom are from mainland Japan, but they met while working seasonal jobs on Zamami two years ago.  They both stayed longer than a season - maybe a year each - before getting engaged and then going to work in Australia for six months.  They came back recently to fulfill a promise of having a wedding ceremony on Zamami.  I met the girl (Tomoko) through the eisa group.  Her English was decent at the time, now both are much better after their time in Australia.

I had grand notions of rocking the photography for them, but it just didn't pan out.  I will admit to being in a bad mood for the first hour, after taking the advice of 3-4 people to wear a suit, then discovering that I was the ONLY person there in a suit (not even the fathers were wearing them!).  I had the discomfort of the suit compounded by the discomfort of standing out.  And I need to be comfortable to photograph well, I learned.

I wasn't very happy with the photos, but here's the best of them:

I found out after the wedding that they are staying on Zamami.  I really love these two so this makes me very happy.  Also, I found out she's one month pregnant!  Maybe I can have better luck photographing their baby?

Two notable events from the wedding:

*They did a 'game' where everybody who was in attendance had their name in a box.  The bride and groom randomly drew out names and those people had to come give a speech.  Yep, I was one of the four chosen.  This was one of the situations I've learned it is probably better to use my English than practice my Japanese, and I'm glad I did.

*It was a little windy for the bouquet toss so they did something I've never seen before (I'm not exactly a seasoned wedding attendee, however): The bride held 15 long red ribbons in her hand, one of which was tied to the bouquet.  On her count of three everybody pulled their ribbon - and the winner of the next marriage was attached to the bouquet.