Getting married in Japan Part 8: The "Events"

As I have alluded to in several of my previous entries, Japanese weddings are usually pretty eventful affairs with a tight schedule to keep. This obviously makes the previously discussed toastmasters job a lot more difficult, but it also puts higher demands on preparation before the wedding since everything has to be carved in stone before the event kick-off...

Now, I'm of course talking about major events such as the "profile video" that need to be scheduled in, but also keeping in mind that Japanese people are far from spontaneous in formal events such as a wedding reception, all the speeches need to be agreed upon and put in the schedule. That a Japanese friend or relative would spontaneously decide that it would be nice to do a brief improvised speech is basically unheard of. Friends and relatives basically need to be intimidated with violence or bribed to agree to take on this task... One of Ms. Sunshine's friends agreed only after she had been reminded how Ms. S. had given a speech at her wedding quite a few years earlier and how it was time to return the favor...

There are plenty of "standard" events such as speeches, the profile video, cake cutting etc. that are common with western weddings, but the Japanese take this one step further with the tight management of time (our schedule was down to the minute...) and reluctance to have any prolonged time of downtime where nothing exciting is occurring. This makes the wedding a very very nice market for the hotels and sites arranging the wedding since they can sell in pretty interesting "events" to strategically place at the wedding, for a hefty price. Let me give you an example that can help you to perhaps visualize how a typical event would look like:

The bride and groom has departed the room a little earlier and now the guests are enjoying the food and perhaps actually having time to converse a bit with the person next to them. All of a sudden the lights go out and a spotlight focuses on the door which are opened by some hotel peon, revealing the bride and groom holding a bottle of fluorescent liquid of some exciting color. The toastmaster announces something in the vein of "now the newly married couple will share a little of the love they have for each other with all the guests". The couple goes to each table of guests and pour a bit of the liquid into some vase already placed on the table and "light" up each of the tables, when all tables have received their little share of the "love" the couple goes up to stand by the main table. The toastmaster follows up "now the couple will together, as husband and wife, go on and create a new family and love and cherish each other". Now the couple poor the liquid into a large vase already filled with a clear liquid and as they do that the liquids react and the vase glows brightly with a new color. Cue the smoke machine and soundtrack emphasizing the amazing event that just took place...

I think you can get the gist of the general corniness of these events and both me and Ms. Sunshine were in full agreement that we did not want to resort to this type of events... However, for a while it was a bit dangerous since we had an calm period of ~10min in the agenda that "needed" to be filled with something. But at the last minute, an artistically gifted cousin on the Japanese side agreed to sing (under severe threats of violence, bribes and flattery mixed) filling the schedule to the brim...

Coming up next... The horror of the seating charts...