Tarto in Japan

Ten days ago, I attended a wedding in Japan for the first time. It was actually a mixed marriage between Alex, an English friend, and Asuka, his Japanese girlfriend. Alex is a really nice guy I met when I was studying at Yamasa in Okazaki, since he was also staying at the student village. I had lost touch with him and it was thanks to my bud Mark that I learned about his wedding, which was actually held in Okazaki, right next to the castle.

Two days before, we had a bachelor party nobody is going to forget, except Alex who got drunk pretty early:

Decency prevents me from saying more...

Nevertheless, he looked much more presentable 48 hours later, with his charming spouse Asuka:

A traditional Japanese wedding has two parts:

• the ceremony
• the banquet, or hirouen (披露宴)

And custom has it that people then have dinner at a restaurant.

The pre-ceremony photo shoot:

For the ceremony itself, there exist, and I am not kidding, fake churches (with fake priests officiating) for people who want a western-style wedding. There is actually one pretty close to my apartment, I will take a picture so you can see how ugly it is...Thankfully, last saturday's wedding wasn't held at one of those gaudy places but, to my pleasant surprise, on an open air theatre stage. I have no idea whether this is common, but it definitely was a nice exotic setting!

Next was the banquet, about which I don't have much to say since I only attended the last twenty minutes or so. I didn't have trouble killing time until then, the weather was just perfect so I strolled the castle area and enjoyed one of the final days of the cherry blossom season.

Which is characterized by the falling flowers:

Back to the banquet:

My turn to enjoy:

Another photo shoot:

I spent quite some time with Alex's family, who are really lovely people. I wish I could have exchanged more than common courtesies with Asuka's family but there was just not enough time.

We then went to an izakaya:

Now they just have to make beautiful mixed race babies!