Here Comes The Bride
I mentioned before that I went to two weddings in Japan last month. It was my first time to go to a wedding in Japan. Actually, come to think of it, it was my first time to go to a wedding, period. I came to Japan right after college, and during college I didn’t have any friends who got married. Quite far from it, actually.
Female Friend: So I was at this club the other night, and I met this guy, and we hit it off really well. We ended up going back to his place, and we made out and pretty much did everything except sex, because I’m not a slut y’know? Anyway, do you think he likes me?
Me: Um…no. He’s just trying to get into your pants dear.
Female Friend: No, I don’t think so, I mean, if he was only after that he would have said so, right? So, I’m gonna go out with him again tomorrow, and maybe this is too soon, but I really think he could be The One.
Me: *slaps forehead in frustration*
Now, if you think that convo is pathetic…well, it is. More so for me, for having been subjected to it. If it counts for anything though, after my Nice Guy Revolution I approached this convo with a much different attitude…
Female Friend: So, like, I was at this party…
Me: And you met this guy, you hit it off, and you ended up at his place making out?
Female Friend: …OMG! How did you know?
Me: Um, lucky guess.
Female Friend: So, what should I do?
Me: Clearly, it’s the start of a new, special relationship. You should have sex with him. Immediately.
Female Friend: You think so?
Me: Yeah. Because we guys aren’t able to detach sex from emotions, same as you women! If you have sex with him, surely he’ll fall in love with you.
Female Friend: Wow, okay, I’ll try that!
Me: Also, before he falls asleep after the sex, you should hurry into the kitchen and make him a sandwich. Preferably ham. Because nothing says “You’re The One” more than a post-coitus ham sandwich.
During the later years of college, I surrounded myself with more guy friends. But this didn’t exactly improve my chances for attending any weddings. Worsened them, actually…
Guy Friend: So I was in my CS class, and I noticed this cute girl sitting next to me.
Me: Did you talk to her?
Guy Friend: Well, I wanted to, but then I remembered that a new Counter-Strike patch was coming out today, so I had to rush home to download it.
Me: …Naturally.
As I said, I came to Japan right after college. While Japanese girls do move at LUDICROUS SPEED when it comes to relationships, most foreign guys I know also had fairly strong “IT’S A TRAP!” senses and would run for the hills when the ugly M-word reared its head. I did have one friend who got married while I was a JET, but it was a Japanese ceremony, and was only open to immediate family. Thinking about this, this is still a shock to me, because by the time he left Japan, this guy absolutely hated anything that was even remotely Japanese. Even the slightest thing was prone to send him off on another “I hate Japan!” rant. He had a running tote board counting down the seconds until he was leaving. So it was fairly shocking when, not even one year later, Mr. “I Hate Japan!” was all “I miss Japan”, and even more shocking when he got married to a Japanese girl in a Japanese ceremony in Kyoto, the old capital of Japan. Perhaps you had to know the guy to appreciate how much of a turn-around this was. The only thing I can compare this to would be if Hitler one day got up and said “The Jewish – such a wonderful and awesome people. I just want to find the nearest Jewish person and give them a big hug and kiss…”
There’s two styles of weddings in Japan – the traditional Japanese wedding, and the western style – in a church, with the white wedding dress and the preacher and choir and all that. Since I did not get to go to my friend’s wedding, I simply have no idea what a Japanese wedding is like. For all I know, they dress up in ninja outfits, throw sushi at each other, and then beat each other with Klingon pain sticks.
The western style is, well, what you would expect. I say that having never been to a wedding, but having seen plenty on TV. And if we are to use TV weddings as a model, then when the preacher asks “if anyone objects to this union, speak now or forever hold your peace…”, then almost certainly some old fling/unrequited love would burst through the doors, scream their objection, and as the groom/bride realizes their true feelings run away to form a new happy couple. Has anyone been to a wedding where somebody actually got up and objected?
Preacher: Speak now, or forever hold your peace…
Random Dude: Um, yeah, I wasn’t going to say anything, but actually I fucked the bride last night…
Groom: …What?
Random Dude: So I was thinking maybe this marriage shouldn’t happen, given the fucking last night and all…
Bridesmaid: Yeah, I was there too.
Groom: …WHAT?!
Why is this even a part of the ceremony? Not that I’m complaining per se, but if we’re going to have the Pheonix Wright “OBJECTION!” pause in a wedding ceremony, why can’t we have them during other times as well?
TV: And now, the Lifetime Channel presents, a 48 hour non-stop marathon of Sandra Bullock movies…
Men Across The Globe: …OBJECTION!
Supreme Court Justice: And now, I shall swear the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush, into the office he was elected…if there are any objections, speak now, or forever hold your peace…
Half of America, and 95% of The Entire World: ….*Ahem*…
So the Japanese western wedding tries to sort of imitate the American wedding. And much like all Japanese imitations of western things, it’s like they almost got it right…but not quite.
One thing I found interesting was that, at both weddings, the ministers were foreigners. I’m not sure if this is supposed to authenticate the “western” wedding, but I just found it a little odd. I guess we Gaijin have another super-power in Japan. A quick review –
– The power to “smash” our way through society
– The power to repel Japanese people away from us
– The power to freak Japanese people out so badly, they become incapable of understanding neither English or Japanese
– The power to join a loving couple in holy matrimony
The minister does the ceremony jointly in English and Japanese, which was funny because the English portions certainly fell on deaf ears. Like, he would say “amen” – now, I’m used to people in America repeating the amen, but here in Japan they just kinda stared at him and wondered what in the heck he was saying. Also, a few times he would say “Let us pray” – I’d bow my head and close my eyes, but then when curiosity got the best of me, I’d bat open an eye to see an audience of Japanese people staring at the minister and wondering why he keeps pausing the ceremony.
Neither ceremony played “Here Comes The Bride” when the bride came in. That to me was just weird – how can you not play this song? If its not “Here Comes The Bride”, shit, it might as well be anything. You might as well play Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up”. Or how about the “Graveyard Symphony”, The Undertaker’s classic theme from the WWF? Or better yet, watch the confused looks on all the guests faces as the lovely bride walks down the aisle to “It’s Raining Men”.
Personally, I want my bride-to-be to come down the aisle to the Voltron theme song. Preferably running. And then I could hire Peter Cullen to do the narration in the Optimus Prime voice – “From days of long ago, from uncharted regions of the Pacific Ocean, comes a legend. The legend of Azrael, Defender of the Gaijin. A mighty Gaijin, loved by teachers, feared by junior high school boys…” And then the minister could say “Ms. Azrael, do you vow to activate the interlocks, to always connect the dynatherms, to ensure that the infra-cells are up, and to make sure that the mega-thrusters are go for as long as you shall live?” Would that not be the most awesome wedding ever? Any woman who can’t get on board with this is clearly not a woman I want to be marrying.
After many Japanese weddings is a sort of party called a hiro-en. I dunno how to describe it – it’s kind of like a “This Is Your Life” gathering for the married couple. Friends get up and tell stories, sing songs, make excessively long toasts, etc. K-san’s wedding didn’t have a hiro-en, but S-san did. I wasn’t invited to it, so I can’t tell you what went down, but all I know is that my girlfriend turned into a sniveling crying mess during the middle of a song, and during her speech. I can’t say I was surprised – she started to tear up the night before as she was rehearsing her speech. My only regret is that I wasn’t there to catch it all on tape. You never know when you’re going to need blackmail material in a relationship.
After the hiro-en is another event called the nijikai. Roughly translated, this just means “second party”. Its little more than a drinking party – I believe I’ve said before that the Japanese LOVE to drink. They will make any excuse to have a drinking party, and most certainly a wedding qualifies. I’m not sure if Japanese nijikai’s feature any Wedding Crashers-like hi-jinks, but the two I went to most certainly did not. For the most part, the groom invited all his male friends, the bride invited all her female friends, and never did the twain meet. At S-san’s nijikai, the most exciting part of the evening was the Jan-Ken Taikai – or, Paper/Rock/Scissors Tournament. I made it to the semi-finals, but was eventually bested by a small Japanese girl. …I trained so hard for it too. Clearly, she just had more heart than me that night. Oh well, I’ll be ready for next year’s Jan-Ken square-off.
K-san’s nijikai was a little more interesting. Whereas the drinks at S-san’s party were a bit watered down, here it was an open bar full of all sorts of wonderful alcohol. A few hours in, my girlfriend noticed the groom’s younger sister and brother, who’d been steadfastly downing cocktails all night. The younger brother was a bit suspect, seeing as how he was wearing a school uniform and all…
GF: Hey, how old are you?
Brother: Um, 16…
GF: Huh. *to the sister* Waitatic, how old are you?
Sister: Um, 19…
(The legal drinking age in Japan is 20)
GF: ….I see. Meh, whatev. Knock yourselves out.
Siblings: Will do, thanks!
The bride herself, K-san, also had a lot to drink. A LOT to drink. I mean, this girl was absolutely wasted. At one point she was talking to me, and she was so in my face, that if the Earth had suddenly lurched like a centimeter in either direction we would have ended up kissing. Now, I’m not sure where “kissing your girlfriend’s newlywed best friend” ranks on the ladder of social faux pas…I’m thinking somewhere in between murdering the family dog, or covering the family house in shit and then lighting it on fire. This is one of those things that even daytime talk shows can’t solve…
Jerry Springer: Now, on today’s show we have Az, and his jilted lover.
Audience: JERRY! JERRY!
Jerry: Why don’t you tell us why you’re so upset?
Ex-GF: Well, this douchebag kissed my best friend…
Jerry: Well, that’s bad, but I’ve seen worse…
Ex-GF: It was her wedding night!
Audience: Ohhhhhhhhh. Boooooooooo!
Ex-GF: You sack of crap! *flings herself at me with the power and fury only a Japanese woman can unleash*
Audience: YEAH! JERRY! JERRY!
Me: Ow! Ow! That hurts! Hey, Steve! Steve? Where’s Steve?
Jerry: ….Actually Az, I think I’m just gonna let her whale on you for awhile, you filthy piece of shit.
The real loser was the groom though. Imagine having to take your new wife home, and she’s completely blitzed. You don’t even get to consummate the marriage! Well, I dunno, its a Japanese couple, so maybe they did…
(The Next Morning)
Her: Oh man, my head is killing me.
Him: Morning sleepyhead.
Her: Man, I had SO much to drink! Sorry about that. I guess I kinda blacked out…
Him: Yeah, you did.
Her: Sorry, we didn’t even consummate the marriage.
Him: Yeah, about that…we did, actually.
Her: …We did?
Him: Yep.
Her: Was I there?
Him: Yep. You weren’t awake, but you were present for roll call at least.
Her: Hey! That’s a little unfair, isn’t it?
Him: You wanna talk about unfair? You get wasted on the one day, the ONE DAY on which you OWE me tail. That is the ONE DAY in which you are obligated, as my little woman, to give it up, and Goddamnit, I’m going to collect, and collect I did…
Her: I know…I just wish I could’ve been awake for it.
Him: No way! The best part is how you never moved. By the way, you might want to clean out your eardrums this morning…
So there you have it. I go from zero weddings attended to two in less than one month. Seeing as how my girlfriend’s friends are now hitched up, and my friends are either already married or kinda far from it, the very next wedding I go to just might be…my own.
If you form the body sweetheart…then I’ll form the head.
———————————————————————–
As you may have read over at Outpost Nine, I’m not exactly the richest guy around at the moment. The little lady doesn’t need extravagance, but I would like to get her a nice ring should I pop the question. My entries have always been and will always be free to those who want to read them, but if you may feel inclined to donate some holiday cheer, I would appreciate it very, very, very much.
Head over to Outpost Nine for more information on donations.
Absolutely nothing is required or expected.
Gaijin Smash 
Hell with just a wedding, you need Peter Cullen narrating your life and saying your lines.
I mean, come on. Imagine rearing back with all your foreign might to smash your way through all of Japan, and when you open your mouth to let loose the mighty roar, it’s Peter Cullen’s voice that bellows to the firmament, “GAIJIN SMASH!”
That is the ideal to which all men aspire.
So what kind of a wedding do you want to have Az? And would it be alright if I came and took some blackmail pictures of you at your nijikai?
“If you form the body sweetheart…then I’ll form the head.”
I dig that, is it pure Az?
Also whale = wail.
I can totally hear Peter Cullen doing that speech and it kinda freaks me out. And yet, it’s incredibly cool as everything Peter Cullen does is.
Gladiator Voltron was comprised of 3 people, so maybe (hear me out here), maybe if you explain it to her just right, you could be joining with two chicks instead of one! Think about it: feet ‘n ass everywhere, every night…and at the end, 2 HAM SANDWICHES or maybe even the fabled DOUBLE DECKER(*sshhh, it is legend*)!
You owe it to men everywhere to at least try…
I always kinda invisioned the bride coming down the aisle to “The REF March” from “Robotech: The Sentinels”. That’s just me, though…
– Brian J
I always kinda invisioned the bride coming down the aisle to “The REF March” from “Robotech: The Sentinels”. That’s just me, though…
– Brian J
Az, have a classic Japanese wedding. That way, you can make an ass of yourself and those of your family that will be present, because not one of your end will know what the hell’s going on. Not even the groom.
Sorry, but it’s my brand of humor, and I’d pay to see it. (You could use it to fund your wedding ring, see?)
Damn, man, cuz of the title, for a second I almost thought YOU got married.
Az, why dont you walk down the aisle to the “Highway to Hell”-song
that would be awsome
Your ideal wedding is the stuff dreams are made of, Az. If it were possible to do this, you would become a king to us all. For some reason though, I keep thinking that if Peter Cullen got to do the, “May you speak now…” line, Frank Welker would come busting in with something snappy to say. Which would bring the day from awesome to spectacular.
Your ideal wedding is the stuff dreams are made of, Az. If it were possible to do this, you would become a king to us all. For some reason though, I keep thinking that if Peter Cullen got to do the, “May you speak now…” line, Frank Welker would come busting in with something snappy to say. Which would bring the day from awesome to spectacular.
The Azrael Wedding March? What else, but….
o/~ KANCHO KANCHO KANCHO KANCHO/
KANCHO KANCHO KANCHO KANCHO/
DODGEDICK! (DODGEDICK!) o/~
>:)
In between creasing up with laughter (and taking notes for the future), to manage to include references to Spaceballs, Admiral Ackbar, Phoenix Wright and The Prodigy gives four circles of “hell yeah” here 🙂
(and I do occasionally shout “Objection!” so don’t think it’s not done!)
I thought about the Voltron wedding, but I kinda wanted to do Star Wars…then again….I kinda want a wedding kimono as well…..hmmm….then again, with as expensive as those things are, i just wanted to go have the honeymoon first, go get hitched on a beach somewhere, then come back and have a rockin costume party. Weddings are SO much work! See, I came to Japan later, and got to attend or worse be IN many of my friends weddings. *shudders* Ive got like 4 Japanese weddings to attend next year.
They do move with a lightning swiftness, i know 3 Japanese girls, who met guys btw April and July, who have gotten married/are getting married btw October and December…but hey, if theyre happy. *shrugs*
I don’t really get the entire point of all those ridiculously fancy weddings, the giant dress the bride’s gonna eventually trip over, and the extremely slow steps, so it takes half a millenia just to walk the aisle. >.>
The story I heard about the “speak now or forever hold your peace” thing in Western weddings is this: The Catholic church had pretty severe restrictions on how distantly related you had to be in order to marry someone. If you knew that a couple was more closely related than that, then your last chance to object to the wedding was when the priest said that line.
The specific restriction was that you couldn’t be any closer than *sixth* cousins, or the wedding was verboten. Consider for a moment that Laura Bush and Barack Obama are eighth cousins once removed. Most people don’t know anyone beyond their second cousins (that’s people who have the same great-grandparents as you).
Anyway, estimates suggest that in the Middle Ages, the sixth-cousin restriction was sufficient to make it technically against church law for *anybody* in all of England to marry each other. The restriction was universally ignored, and to this day, most people don’t even know why it’s in there. But it sure does make for some easy sitcom writing.
Voltron wedding FTW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When presenting the rings: Form… BLAZING RING!
of course everyone looks at the minister in a blank stare when he says, “amen.” the majority of people in japan aren’t christain and aren’t even remotely familiar with all those western religious customs… it’s all for show!
at least gaijin have another job they can try out for. ha ha ha!
of course everyone looks at the minister in a blank stare when he says, “amen.” the majority of people in japan aren’t christain and aren’t even remotely familiar with all those western religious customs… it’s all for show!
at least gaijin have another job they can try out for. ha ha ha!
I think a nice music would be the opening theme for Fruits Basket. somehow, it seems fitting, with it’s “let’s stay together itsumo…”, and the song’s rythme is almost like Here Comes the Bride, I find.
Am I allowed to post links in comments? If I am, here is the youtube video for the opening, for people who are not familiar with it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zQ5ZLYS_5M
Man, I can’t believe I’ve been reading this big black dudes shit for over a year now .. wtf is wrong with me?
Oh yeah.. I know why! cause the big black dude cured me of my yellow fever and I keep coming back to make sure I STAY in remission!
wtf is up with J-chicks and ludicrous speed marriages? Ya know Az.. you’ll end up like helmet when the wedding is over (ie the good ship lolipop stops). You won’t be able to get her into maid form and forget about getting it to go into either suck or blow mode :p
I say Kirk that ass and continue to boldly explore where no black dude has gone before.
I really can’t thank you enough for curing my yellow fever.
Az, as a long-time reader who’s been enjoying your stuff since the Outpost Nine site (not just the Japan-related stuff; the other editorials are priceless), I really should be depressed that the frequency of your posts dropped for a couple months there. But the weird thing is, the quality and length of the posts that do get up are so good, I haven’t been nearly as bothered as I thought I’d be. Anyway, keep up the good work, and good job proving to everyone who didn’t already know that the reason your writing is so great isn’t because of the subject matter, but because you’re the one writing about it.
“Ms. Azrael, do you vow to activate the interlocks, to always connect the dynatherms, to ensure that the infra-cells are up, and to make sure that the mega-thrusters are go for as long as you shall live?”
Oh my god… I so want to redo my wedding…
I think it’s kinda funny you weren’t invited to the Hiro-en thing and now I can’t help but wonder what it was you were doing while the whole thing went down.
Also your ideal wedding is probably one of the most awesome ideas ever way better than a Thundercats themed wedding, because nothing would be more akward than looking in your bride to be’s eyes and shouting “Hooooo!” at the top of your lungs because it was something LionO would do.
Still a G.I. Joe theme has some merits to it, either that or a Batman Animated Series theme…
(Az’s Note: I wasn’t invited to the hiro-en because guests cost money and they had to make some limitations. Boyfriend of friend isn’t exactly a close, personal friend or family. The bride did seem to feel really bad about it.
And what was I doing? Playstation 3. =p
A Batman themed wedding would be kinda sad methinks. The groom never shows, instead his butler arrives and says he’ll be late as he’s out trying to clean up the streets.)
Regarding the Western-like marriages, one of these days I saw an Ad for part-time jobs for foreigners here in Tokyo, to work as preachers in Western-style marriages.
So, yes, even the priest is fake in these.
I couldn’t but laugh when you said that the japanese western-marriage is just like what you see in TV: I guess that is the whole point, all the brides want to do is have a marriage exactly like they see in the movies.
will you provide us loyal fans with video of the wedding? kekekeke
Good luck with the possible wedding proposal later on. I dropped some money in your paypal account.
Just when I think I’m beyond those moments of childlike wonder, you go and mention a Peter Cullen narrative. I didn’t just hear it in my head, it felt like I was sitting there watching it play out.
I’m in my third decade (sad as that is), and just hearing his voice pipe out in the Transformers movie brought slight tears of happy child joy to me. Thanks for keeping that feeling alive, Az. With the speed at which these japanese women seem to move, though, it almost makes me think I should relocate. Find myself a nice woman who isn’t banging all the local guys and just wait for a few months to see if she succumbs to the fever, then join you and the others on the crusade to produce beautiful mixed children.
There has got to be a way to make that turn into actual income, short of becoming a common man-whore.
This isn’t really related, but since you mentioned Voltron, thought I’d show you this link: http://wgntv.trb.com/news/local/larrysworld/wgntv-news-101504larrysworld,0,7062241.story?coll=wgntv-larrysworld-2
I’m in college and one of my art professors told us about how the minister at his wedding was a robot he created. He somehow made it so that the robot could play a tape of a minister talking. You should hire someone to make you a robot minister! 😛
This isn’t really related, but since you mentioned Voltron, thought I’d show you this link: http://wgntv.trb.com/news/local/larrysworld/wgntv-news-101504larrysworld,0,7062241.story?coll=wgntv-larrysworld-2
I’m in college and one of my art professors told us about how the minister at his wedding was a robot he created. He somehow made it so that the robot could play a tape of a minister talking. You should hire someone to make you a robot minister! 😛
I was thisclose to objecting at my best friends wedding (I was the maid of honor). The guy was such a pathetic loser douchebag that it would make you sick. Fat, nasty (literally unclean), treated her like dirt took one elective college course a year so he could set around and say I go to school I dont have to work. And ended up making her work and take care of their kid. She gave me that look at stopped me. Now she regrets it they’ve been divorced a little over a year now! She really wishes she had just let me scream it to the whole church.
I don’t think people today even know what the wedding objection is or where it came from; the question asks if there is any just (legal) cause to stop the wedding. It began as a way to prevent an illegal marriage (such as, “hey, that guy’s already married!” or, “You can’t get married; she’s your half-sister that you never knew about!”). Nowadays, with all the paperwork to submit and the required blood test just to get a marriage license, there really isn’t a need for the marriage objection to be in the wedding, and many ministers/judges have dropped the question from the ceremony.
Anyway, just a piece of trivia I thought folks would be interested in, since the subject has come up a few times.
Oh wow! longtime reader here, but this is my first post. wow, if you really are planning on popping the question to your girl, I wish you the best of luck.
Man, I was just thinking of Phoenix Wright when you mentioned that wedding line… and poof! You mentioned it and made me go “Yay! <3” Man, it’d be fun to stand up and point dramatically, “OBJECTION!”
…In Japan, you’d probably have to shout, “IGIARI!” instead. <.<
I feel like a bad person, but I never watched Transformers as a child. ;_; I watched nickolodeon stuff, like Rocko’s Modern Life.
Hi from a every-once-in-a-while reading your blog person!
Just one comment to “Christian” weddings here in Japan: The priests is by no way real:
Japanese want a foreigner to play the priest to make it “authentic”, and one of my Canadian friend was actually offered this job (He is blond and blue eyed). He was offered quite some money for it but it just felt too odd for him to do so.
(Az’s Note: As I understand it, the wedding is for little more than show anyway. The couple is already legally married before they ever get to the chapel.)
i thought you brock up with you’re girl freind.
cheers mate
If you do pop that question. Do tell us loyal fans. by the way I sent ya some money. It’s not much but I do what I can..
Keep it up as always.
Just one question–
What self-respecting man watches Lifetime?
Not to rain on your parade, but reading your stories just seems like your girlfriend makes you do chores, makes you do preppy girly stuff, and doesn’t connect with you on any of your favorite pasttimes such as transformers, video games, English, obscure literary and movie references, etc.
Are you sure you’re ready for marriage?
Give it some good thought 🙂
Not to rain on your parade, but reading your stories just seems like your girlfriend makes you do chores, makes you do preppy girly stuff, and doesn’t connect with you on any of your favorite pasttimes such as transformers, video games, English, obscure literary and movie references, etc.
Are you sure you’re ready for marriage?
Give it some good thought 🙂
You crack me up.
Go running and workout at home Az. Plenty of “home workouts” on the net.
Oh you would have loved my friend’s wedding. She probably would have walked down the aisle with the Undertaker’s music seeing how she wore a gothic looking black dress as her wedding gown, her cake topper was of two skeletons in wedding apparel and said cake was covered in black icing.
Actually, both of the currently-traditional pieces of wedding music (the processional and the recessional, that is to say, Here Comes The Bride and There Goes The Bride) are pretty deeply inappropriate choices. There’s no actual rule on what kind of music you should use, either, so the Voltron theme tune wouldn’t really be any worse of a pick.
“if we’re going to have the Phoenix Wright “OBJECTION!” pause in a wedding ceremony”
…Oh, wow. I now have this strange urge to do exactly that. And my mother is getting married soon…
Damn my common sense and shyness!
> Actually, come to think of it, it was
> my first time to go to a wedding, period.
Wait… how the heck does someone get to be an adult without attending a couple dozen weddings? What did your parents do while you were growing up, lock you in the basement whenever they attended anything important or formal? I suppose you’ve never been to a funeral either, or a family reunion, or an anniversary party? Did you never go to a graduation ceremony until your own? I’m trying to understand… help me out here. Also, weren’t you ever in a wedding party when you were a kid, as ring-bearer or anything? Did your parents not have any friends, siblings, or cousins? What gives?
> I’m used to people in America repeating the amen
It is worth noting that not every congregation in America does this. In parts of the midwest, for instance, speaking out in the middle of a service like that is pretty much limited to charismatics. I’m not sure even charismatics would do that at a wedding. (Weddings around here are much more formal than a normal church service. So are funerals. I’m not sure why, they just are.)
> Neither ceremony played “Here Comes The
> Bride” when the bride came in. That to
> me was just weird
I’d say only about 60-80% of weddings I’ve been to used the Bridal Chorus at that point in the ceremony. The most recent wedding I attended had “How Beautiful” at that point, IIRC. (Which I thought was a bit odd, because a human woman getting married is _not_ what that song is talking about when it speaks of “the bride”. But the bride and groom both like the song, so.)
There are also two different major compositions entitled Wedding March, either or neither of which may be played at any given wedding, most often as the bride and groom leave the stage. Sometimes the other one gets used in lieu of the Bridal Chorus for the procession. I’ve also seen Bach pieces used in this role, e.g., the famous piano arrangement of the two-part chorale from Heart and Mind and Thought and Life (BWV 147).
> Personally, I want my bride-to-be to come
> down the aisle to the Voltron theme song.
I’d favor something a bit more serious myself, probably something with a BWV number, but if you really want to get silly, how about Yankovic’s “I Was Only Kidding”? A couple would have to be pretty secure in their commitment to one another to play that at the wedding!
> After many Japanese weddings is a sort
> of party called a hiro-en. I dunno how
> to describe it – it’s kind of like a
> “This Is Your Life” gathering for the
> married couple. Friends get up and tell
> stories, sing songs,
In America we call that the reception. Usually we hold it in the church fellowship hall and serve cake and punch, and sometimes nuts and mints, but apart from that it’s exactly as you describe…
> make excessively long toasts
Err, except for that part. Toasts, as in alcohol? At a *wedding* reception? In a *church*? (Or do they go somewhere else for the reception?)
> nijikai… They will make any excuse to
> have a drinking party, and most certainly
> a wedding qualifies.
Now, that’s just outlandishly weird. I would think that if there’s one time in your life you would emphatically NOT want to be drunk or, heaven forfend, hung over, wouldn’t your wedding night be it? Seriously, can you think of any other point of time in your life when it would be more worthwhile to stay sober?
Granted, I don’t understand the motivation behind wanting to be drunk ever, so maybe I’m missing something, but come on, *on your wedding night*? That’s industrial-strength messed up.
Also granted, there are some pretty oddball customs surrounding weddings here. Pelting the newlywed couple with rice or popcorn or bubbles or whatever is a little strange. (Water balloons would be a tempting variation, if the wedding party weren’t expected to wear expensive rented dry-clean-only attire.) Taking the photos between the ceremony and the reception, while everyone waits, is a somewhat annoying custom, especially with the increasingly shutter-happy tendencies toward hundreds of photographs in recent decades. The receiving line is completely unnecessary (everyone is going to chat at the reception anyway) and is tiring for the bride and the groom and their families and the wedding party. The business with the roll of white plastic… I have no clue what’s up with that, I think everyone just does it because everyone else does it.
But still, those weirdnesses have nothing on finishing up with a drinking party.
> Oh you would have loved my friend’s wedding.
> She probably would have walked down the aisle
> with the Undertaker’s music seeing how she
> wore a gothic looking black dress as her
> wedding gown
Wow. Talk about making a statement. But I bet she didn’t realize exactly what statement that would make in the eyes of the older generations. I guarantee they weren’t thinking “ooh, she’s all goth, like death and poetry and stuff”.
(Hint: if a widow gets married, it’s traditional for her to wear cream-color (or off-white, or occasionally pastel) rather than pure white, since having been married previously, and having had, presumably, relations with her first husband, she is not technically qualified to wear the white gown for what it traditionally symbolizes. Black isn’t just “not white”, but the diametric opposite of white, definitely not the statement most brides want to make at their wedding! Everyone in North America over the age of forty knows this stuff. Seriously, ask your parents what it means for a bride to wear a color other than white, if they’re over forty and grew up in the US, I guarantee they know.)
Holy fuck if that wasn’t the best voltron usage in teh vows I have ever fucking seen.
/agreed, Voltron FTW!