A Marriage in the Family

I thought for way too long about how I wanted to start this one, but ultimately got sick of thinking and just started typing. This last weekend, not one but two of my coworkers got married - yes, to each other. If you'll take a moment to recall some of my previous nickname posts, the happy new couple are Ninja T of KJH and Closet Naughty of School in the Sky.

Ninja T is the Japanese teacher at KJH, and he's recently become my study aid, by no fault of his own. When there's nothing to do at work I sometimes study Japanese, and when I came across complicated material I used to default to asking my English-teaching coworkers about it. One day I was stumped by a particularly minute detail that I asked Mrs. Freckles about; she jokingly told me to leave her alone and ask the guy who teaches this kind of thing. It didn't take long for Ninja T to become my go-to guy for all such obscurities.

I've known Closet Naughty on a personal level for a while longer; she sits right next to me at SitS (sits...SitS?? oh nevermind, it was unintentional anyway) so we're always talking about this, that, or the other thing. I know a bit more about her and I knew that she had a boyfriend...I did not have a freaking clue that her guy worked with me until their marriage was announced! Granted, they work at separate schools and I pretty much only see each of them at work, but I still have no idea how this never came up even in passing. Ninja T seems to have shinobi-esque qualities beyond those of his table tennis game.

Anyway, on to the event itself. A Japanese wedding, much like an American one, is a two-part affair - the ceremony and the reception. In Japan, however, the ceremony is reserved for close friends and immediate family, and the reception is held separately.
The banquet hall it was held at is in Akita City a few hours away, but since so many of the guests were coming from the Kosaka/Kazuno area, there was a tour bus reserved for getting us there and back. The reception was an afternoon function, so the bus left in the morning and the ride there was pretty quiet - everyone had either fallen asleep or else was wishing they had not yet woken up. We arrived sometime after 11 and had at least an hour to kill before anything got started. This was when it dawned on me what rednecks some of my coworkers are. Yes, just like pretty much every other country, Japan has folk who lack knowledge of the finer points of sophistication. We were all slowly congregating in the lobby of the hotel where this banquet hall was located, and generally making small talk about how we were bored and had nothing to do. So, we sat around in our expensive suits and tried to look important for a bit, but it wasn't long before one of the teachers from SitS hefted his briefcase up, cracked it open, and started passing out cans of cheap beer to everyone.

...Picture, if you will, an elegantly decorated lobby, adorned with chairs worth more than your car and chandeliers worth more than your life. Small clusters of impeccably dressed guests are enjoying small talk on the latest trends and fashions; they are the very image of savoir faire. A uniformed maître d' passes, his practiced eye watching for any sign of guests' discontent.
Suddenly a mighty belch ripples across the room, and in the ensuing silence one can hear a pin drop. It is of course followed by a string of humble apologies, but the damage has been done and the scene has been set. I'm just finishing tuning up my banjo, but alas, the hoedown will have to wait. The bride and groom emerge from double doors at the far end of the room and begin their procession toward the entrance of the banquet hall.

Here they are, flanked by parents on either side. This is unfortunately the only decent picture I got of them in traditional Japanese wedding raiment. The Japanese wedding reception, as it currently stands, appears to borrow heavily from the American version most of us are accustomed to, but it does have a few unique points, as well. We sometimes say (mostly in jest) that the wedding is for the woman - it's her moment to look absolutely astounding and to bask in the adoration of friends and family. In Japan this is doubly (triply?) true, as it is customary for the bride to change gowns at least two times during the event and make a new grand entrance each time.

Here's the lovely bride in costume #2, next to their beast of a wedding cake. Yes, it really was bigger than her.

On to costume #3, as well as a wonderful idea on the part of the bride and groom. When they made their grand entrance this time around, the lights were first dimmed. From the start there had been an unlit candle on each table, and as they passed through the banquet hall they stopped at each table and lit the candle together.

It wouldn't be a proper wedding in any country if friends and family didn't get to devolve into clownish idiocy and have many laughs at the new couple's expense. Here, the bride and groom had to take turns drawing these big hanging scrolls out of a box; each one had a household chore written on it that the lucky winner would be responsible for for the rest of their married life. The two pictured have been claimed by the groom, and say "Bath tub cleaning" and "Taking in the laundry (after it has dried)." This one:
tested their respective knowledge of their new spouse. They were simultaneously asked a question about each other, starting with easy stuff like favorite color, and gradually getting more personal and invasive. They had to write their answers on separate whiteboards which were then displayed for everyone to laugh at. The part where they had to draw a caricature of each other was particularly rich.

And speaking of rich...this whole event, from the decor to the (amazing) meal we were served, reeked of costing a fortune. Either I'm way off in my calculations or someone tapped the Bank of Mommy and Daddy for this one - most especially considering that we got PRESENTS! on the way out, too. I'm not talking little bell-and-whistle souvenirs, either. Each guest got a gift bag which contained a designer chocolate cake and a gift catalog from which each person could select one item to have sent to them at a later date. I went with a pretty hardcore cooking knife.

The way home was inevitably peppered with alcohol consumption; after all, Japan has no open-bottle law, so long as the driver is sober. This was only the natural result of putting a bunch of Akita rednecks on a coach bus for three hours, with restroom breaks at convenience stores that sell liquor...

Ninja T, Closet Naughty - on the off chance that you ever read this, congratulations. I never would have guessed it until I saw the ceremony in person, but you two make an excellent couple. I look forward to much more teaching with each of you, not to mention a plethora of stupid banana jokes.