A Japanese Wedding

Last night I attended my first Japanese wedding. It was on Zamami between two people who have lived here awhile, but are from the Japanese mainland. I didn’t know either of them especially well, but I was really happy to be extended an invitation.


One of the coolest parts for me was seeing all the young people of Zamami dressed up. It’s ordinarily a crowd who is clad in surf attire, or whatever they can find on the floor. There was an amusing mix of people who could count on one hand the number of times they’ve worn high heels or a suit (and hence were getting help with their ties at the event) and those who had a solid sense of fashion. I grouped myself on the conservative side of the latter group (I really wished I’d brought back my pink-and-blue tie from America). I’ve had plenty of suit-wearing experience and feel pretty comfortable dressing up.


The event went like this: (1)opening speech by the emcee (2)‘reveal’ of the couple (3) something with the parents (4) eating, watching performances by a Ryukyu (traditional Okinawan) dance, hula, and taiko drumming (5) humorous skits that were intended for people who speak Japanese (6) bride and groom go change then come out and light candles on each table then cut the cake (7) bride and groom give speeches to their parents – everybody cries (8) bride and groom’s best friends give speeches and everybody continues crying (I even felt like crying, but I didn’t know why) (9) bride and groom take gifts, which, as far as I could tell, were envelopes with money (10) bride, groom, and parents leave the room and greet us all on our way out, then give us a gift (cookies).



This was neither a traditional Japanese nor Okinawan ceremony. They were actually officially married a year ago and this was just the public ceremony. The bride and groom didn’t dress in any traditional Japanese clothing – only western attire. The event was low-key, which is why it was on Zamami. As I understand it, usually weddings are held in fancy hotels with fancy food. Our food was.. um, um… the same food that is at every event on Zamami. But something terrible happened yesterday that no doubt drastically affected some elements of the wedding: the ferries from Naha were all canceled due to high winds. I suspect they had a significant order of food and flowers coming out that were stuck in Naha.

[the groom had to come up and learn hula and sing a song with the band and do taiko, which is something he's good at]

There were two notable differences for me between this and an American wedding: (1) I paid ~$50 to attend. Everybody pays an 'entry fee' to help cover the cost of the wedding. I think it’s a great idea as it both relieves expenses from a young, poor couple and replaces wedding gifts. (2) The bride and groom didn’t do a ‘first dance’ nor did they kiss.


There was an after-party at a little karaoke place and the crowd chanted for them to kiss. She was not about to do this publicly so we had to settle for him kissing her on the cheek. One other interesting tidbit that I found out at the after-party: the bride is four months pregnant! It wasn't a secret, just not something I would pick up on.

[this is kind of an awesomely timed picture: they were lighting the candle at our table while people were pulling those little exploding streamer things]