In all honesty, this next installment in this immensely popular series of posts does not deal with something that is a necessity for a wedding in Japan, but it still is something that is very likely to be discussed at some point.
The topic at hand is the "Profile Video" and I believe that it is not a completely unique thing for Japan, similar videos can be found at western weddings as well from time to time. The purpose of the "Profile Video" is basically to introduce the bride and the groom to the guests, usually with a lot of pictures of them as kids and following them as they grow older with some more or less witty comments and catchy music.
Early on in the planning, Ms. Sunshine made it pretty clear that she wanted to have such a video and since I could find no immediate objections to the idea as such, I basically agreed to the concept. Then came the search and planning, some samples were ordered home from professional companies that could edit a video if they got pictures, text and some overall direction. However... the quotes we received were all around $1,000 USD which is a quite hefty sum considering that the samples we saw were less than overwhelmingly impressive.
So, I decided to take matters into my very own competent hands with the help of powerpoint, photoshop, windows movie maker and some funky tunes. Making the main part where the two of us are introduced with pictures and stuff was not the real problem, the problem I faced was in making a fun intro to the whole thing. Some of the samples had (badly) made spoofs of Star Wars, Mission Impossible and similar stuff, something that I thought was a bit amusing. Some friends were also pulled in in trying to help out, but with just a few weeks to the wedding I still had not reached a satisfactory introduction that would set the tone for the rest of the video and, to some extent, the reception as well since the video would be shown pretty early at the start.
After some considerable frustration the inspiration finally came to me and the intro you can see here got made, again, no stupid Youtube or other things, this video is exclusively available here at Salaryman's!:
The reactions? Well, the laughs were definitely heavier among the foreigners in the audience while the Japanese didn't really let loose until Kim Joing Il and Obama. However, Ed Gein was met with complete silence... People just need to get educated!
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5 comments:
Thanks for the pick-me-up...Still smiling. Will use the concept for my nephews wedding this Halloween.. Congrats on your public hanging, I mean wedding...lol
What about the pre wedding photos? My little bro and his finace got them done there last trip, and that was another few thousand $ gone. She's a Hongky, so I guess that explains it, but it seems strange to us (and to him, but he went along with it).
Anonymous - Glad you liked it and hope your video turns out good!
aimless - Actually, we didn't do any pre-wedding photos. I know of the occurrence, but no need for us really, we had the professional photos taken in conjunction with the wedding, then at the fitting we took some amateurish ones. But we didn't really need any high quality pictures before the wedding, the ones we took from the fitting I used in the video and for such stuff...
Good for you, and much cheaper too. When I asked her why she wanted the pre wedding photos she said "what will we give guests on the day?". Oh well, they're paying for it.
The things they seemed to like most about the photos was that she got to wear a few different kimonos.
actually, it's become quite popular to give your guests a wedding cd of music. i don't know why.2 of my cousins did that. i no i did a family reunion music cd, featuring songs about family. i ordered the master cd through the wal-mart online retail center. you pick the songs and the type of cover for the case and they send it to you . it's $9usd for 10 songs. i burned 200 copies and used a postcard of atlanta as the album art with the family name and date added in. then i just printed copies out. it made a nice souvenir gift and cost me about $50usd to make 200 copies. my cousin did her wedding copy after that, so i guess she liked the idea. but wedding videoes are usually only done if the wedding was held out of the country like at a resort in the caribbean, out of your home state(vegas wedding) or if you marry a someone from another country. but i guess it's a common thing for asians. but nowadays, couples really expect their attendants to pay to be in their wedding. traditionally, the bride's family is supposed to pay for the wedding include the gowns for the bridal party. the groom pays for the reception,honeymoon and groomsmen tuxedo rental. at least men can rent. most bridesmaids have to shell out a couple of hundred bucks for a dress and shoes, that she will never wear again even if she looked good in it,plus the cost of hair and makeup for the day itself. then there is the bridal shower and bachelorette party. it's bad enough if you have more than 1 sister, but when you start being in the weddings of your girlfriends and cousins, it can be really expensive. after going to four out-of state weddings, i told my last remaining single cousin to elope. 8D.
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