Destination wedding is always a popular choice. We would picture a chapel on the beach, but did you know that Tokyo is on the rise?
I have clients who are a couple from Hong Kong and are going to get married this autumn in Tokyo. Both of them are Hong Kong Chinese living in Hong Kong. Why Tokyo? Simply for the love of the city! That is what a destination wedding is all about: making a lifetime vow in a place you have a passion for.
Rather than choosing a packaged hotel wedding, the couple preferred to select venues on their own. So we went out together on a venue hunting throughout the city, and it was quite an interesting experience with a lot of tips for people thinking about a destination wedding in Japan.
In Japan people usually have a wedding ceremony in a Shinto (Japanese indigenous religion) shrine, a church or a hotel chapel, regardless of your religion. It is followed by a big dinner in a hotel banquet room or a restaurant.
Churches and shrines are holy places for people to pray and worship gods, right? Yes, it is true, but many of them are making good business by offering packaged wedding ceremonies. Especially with churches, we found two distinct categories: authentic churches and commercial chapels. Authentic churches are for Christians. Commercial chapels are open to anyone, though they do have real priests and choir. They give pretty-looking weddings, but they also have strict rules not for religious reasons but to maintain their package price high. For example, you cannot bring in your own wedding dress but have to rent one at their associated rental dress shop. You cannot ask your make-up artist friend to do you a make-up on the special day but have to hire the chapel's designated artist who may have a completely different sense of colors from yours. Some chapels allow you to bring your own dress, but usually for a surcharge. I could understand a corkage fee for wine bottles because it at least requires the labor of opening them, but for a dress? What have you done for me lately?
Other items that you are obliged to take are photographers and florists. If you look at it from a different angle, however, the systematized package makes it much easier for you, especially if you live overseas and don't have anyone here to assit you through to the wedding.
Having seen commercial chapels and hotels, my clients came to realize they wanted to have more of Japanese touch. They come a long way to get married in Tokyo, and their guests, too, would expect to see something unique. So we shifted our focus on shrines.
Surprisingly, most Japanese shrines accept non-Japanese couples. Among the shrines I called, only Meiji Jingu, the biggest shrine in Tokyo, said no. Meiji Jingu enshrines the Emperor and Empress Meiji, and to be married there, either of the couple has to be a Japanese national.
You can have a wedding ceremony in a shrine, provided that everything is conducted in Japanese language and no translation is given. Not just the ceremony itself, but signing the contract, making payment, discussing the procedure etc. are all done in Japanese. So unless you speak the language a good interpreter is indispensable.
Like chapels, shrines offer packages (normally the wedding section is in an annex building and is technically run by a separate company.) A good ceremony package would come with kimono costumes for the bride and groom, a wig for the bride and a set of photos. You may want to have more number of photos and an upgrade of costumes for surcharge. Here again you cannot bring your own costume, but who would bring wedding kimono from overseas? So the shrine package seems easier to rationalize for foreigner couples.
The couple decided to have a wedding ceremony in a small, time-honored and beautiful shrine in the center of Tokyo, and a banquet at a French restaurant which is also a beautiful Western architecture. A picturesque combination of East and West.
(to be continued)
