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Seems to more than one would expect.

Any advice on how to do the whole trans-pacific wedding thing?

Sorry, only know about friends that married Philipino and Thai bar girls when they were in Korea. Those all ended with her entire family moving into their two bedroom apartment along with livestock. I do not know anything about Japanese culture. Left before the authorities could draw up the warrants. Damn Sake Bombers.

I suggest you ask your intended what she would like to do. You should get some idea of your own, in case she suggest something that is going to be difficult for some reason.

Legal marriage in Japan means going to the town hall and filling in some forms.

People usually round that off with a pseudo-christian ceremony at a wedding chapel. Read this blog for a European insider's view of the Japanese modern wedding. http://foreignsalaryman.blogspot.com/ You'll have to dig back through the past couple of months of posts.

A friend of mine had the full traditional Shinto wedding (white O-Yome kimono, black hakama for him) in Japan, then had a repeat church wedding in the UK. Obviously this gets expensive, especially when significant numbers of both families want to fly over -- it's expensive for them anyway.

My wife wanted to get married at a proper church in the UK. We had a modest reception afterwards at my grandmother's house, with about 60 guests. Then next time we visited Japan, we had a big party at a restaurant for all the Japanese relatives. Her decision to marry in the UK was helped by the fact that we planned to live here afterwards.

A word to the wise -- if you are going to pay for everything you need to keep an eye on costs. You need to keep an eye on everything anyway, in case one of the mothers starts to run away with the thing. Remember whose big day it is.

You will need plenty of copies of the marriage certificate, and of her new koseki-tohon, to help with any immigration issues to the US or Japan.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Go here then work backwards.

http://foreignsalaryman.blogspot.com/2010/03/getting-married-in-japan-part-13.html

If she is not an american citizen, and your getting married, I suggest checking out this site

http://visajourney.com/

It will guide you on everything you need to do for the Visa process.

My wife and I discussed it at length and so we decided to get married a municipal wedding in front of a judge here in the states and the big "to do" in Japan. I figured the whole adage about it being the woman's day should hold true and was more than happy to do the smart thing and do what I was told.

Nice wedding at Meiji-Jingu with the reception at Meiji-Kinenkan. So yeah, we did the whole shinto ceremony at the shrine with a wedding parade and everything. It was a bit odd to have visitors at the shrine taking pics of us though.

Kilkrazy has some good advice there but I'll add that if you're planning on her coming to the US, the sooner you get started on her green card, the better. It took over a year to get my wife here and they pick the application apart with a pair of tweezers. I had to resubmit a particular form because I failed to put "Not Applicapable" in empty spaces on the form (even though the directions for the form didn't mention it was needed).

if you're planning on her coming to the US, the sooner you get started on her green card, the better. It took over a year to get my wife here and they pick the application apart with a pair of tweezers. I had to resubmit a particular form because I failed to put "Not Applicapable" in empty spaces on the form (even though the directions for the form didn't mention it was needed).

That's why I strongly suggest the site I posted. It will lead you step by step, on the Visa Process.

agnosto wrote:My wife and I discussed it at length and so we decided to get married a municipal wedding in front of a judge here in the states and the big "to do" in Japan. I figured the whole adage about it being the woman's day should hold true and was more than happy to do the smart thing and do what I was told.

I like how you write as if you had any say in the matter

@KK: Japanese? Not I. However, I married Chinese. We did the big ceremony in the US, with a subsequent reception in Asia.

We got married at the kuyakusho, ward office, on a weekend by some jiji janitor guy wearing hip waders. Then a few months later we got married in a shrine in her hometown. We had it as a family only type affair to keep the costs down. I've been to a few weddings here where the costs easily hit in the $100,000 range. All that for a super boring 2 hour party, ugh. In my experience, the Japanese hotel wedding isn't worth it. You come in, you sit, they do some BS vow exchanging infront of the local ALT, you eat, you stop to hear mom and dad, you eat, you stop to hear the other mom and dad, you eat, the bride and groom come in costume #2, you eat, the bride and groom come in in costume #3, you go home. All in less than 2 hours. I went to one wedding where there were cheerleaders. My brother-in-law then asked the groom later why there weren't strippers.

Maybe you need a Sanryo-pyuroland wedding with Hello Kitty and Kero-kero-keropi?

malfred wrote:

I like how you write as if you had any say in the matter

Too true. I'd like to meet the person that started the false rumor that Asian women are submissive, so I can slap him.

agnosto wrote:I'd like to meet the person that started the false rumor that Asian women are submissive, so I can slap him.

This is an example of Marketing vs Reality.

Sasori wrote:If she is not an american citizen, and your getting married, I suggest checking out this site

http://visajourney.com/

It will guide you on everything you need to do for the Visa process.

Visa issues are already covered thanks.


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Khornholio wrote:We got married at the kuyakusho, ward office, on a weekend by some jiji janitor guy wearing hip waders. Then a few months later we got married in a shrine in her hometown. We had it as a family only type affair to keep the costs down. I've been to a few weddings here where the costs easily hit in the $100,000 range. All that for a super boring 2 hour party, ugh. In my experience, the Japanese hotel wedding isn't worth it. You come in, you sit, they do some BS vow exchanging infront of the local ALT, you eat, you stop to hear mom and dad, you eat, you stop to hear the other mom and dad, you eat, the bride and groom come in costume #2, you eat, the bride and groom come in in costume #3, you go home. All in less than 2 hours. I went to one wedding where there were cheerleaders. My brother-in-law then asked the groom later why there weren't strippers.

Maybe you need a Sanryo-pyuroland wedding with Hello Kitty and Kero-kero-keropi?

Probably about 3 people here will get that story but it is awesome...



Anyway @Agnosto I remember your pictures from another thread and about the $1000 'tip' at the end.

As it happens we went to Meiji Jingu on this trip. After days of telling me how she didn't want anything big and we should just do a civil ceremony we go there and see a full on Shinto wedding in progress. Bride and groom in kimono, guy with a parasol shading them, whole procession of family members in kimimonos, shinto priest blessing them, guy beating a taiko the size of my car...

So she says 'let's do one like that'.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:

Anyway @Agnosto I remember your pictures from another thread and about the $1000 'tip' at the end.

As it happens we went to Meiji Jingu on this trip. After days of telling me how she didn't want anything big and we should just do a civil ceremony we go there and see a full on Shinto wedding in progress. Bride and groom in kimono, guy with a parasol shading them, whole procession of family members in kimimonos, shinto priest blessing them, guy beating a taiko the size of my car...

So she says 'let's do one like that'.

The good news is that you get a good bit of the money back from your guests; there's no way you'll break even but you won't be like, "Hey, where'd my retirement savings go?".

Don't forget about the nijikai when budgeting; not nearly as expensive as the reception but a decent location will easily set you back $500 (over what the guests pay).

Just do what she tells you but be warned she'll still be freaking out on you, often and telling you how little you've helped out, even after you offered to help and she told you that she could handle it. kkkkkk.

The shinto wedding was fantastic and I do recommend it over the random gaijin mumbling english...and the ceremonial sake is pretty darn tasty. The thing that killed me was all the great food that I was too busy to even try to eat. I did get to eat a small piece of the cake though but by then I was so dazed it could have been cardboard.

agnosto wrote:

malfred wrote:

I like how you write as if you had any say in the matter

Too true. I'd like to meet the person that started the false rumor that Asian women are submissive, so I can slap him.

Holy crap, ain't that that truth.


To KK...first off, congrats. Secondly, yeah, something happens to your woman once a wedding is involved. Initially, mine thought she wanted a very elegant, nontraditional kind of wedding dress. Then she tried on a more "princess-y" dress and got hooked. Still a nice and elegant dress IMO mind you, just more traditional wedding fare. Women have kinda been programmed for their entire lives to dream of being a princess, and the wedding thing just flips that switch no matter how repressed it is.

The worst part is that wedding vendors KNOW THIS.

Yeah and I like how they price the dresses; for just a couple of hundred dollars over the cost of renting, they can own your dress (which they'll never wear again).

Hey,I'm going to marry with my japanese girlfriend near future!
Oh,Wait,I'm japanese too!

Anyway,
Japanese girls tend to do want wedding at chapel. Even they arent christian.

And wedding in japan cost sooo much I assume.

Sure...just a couple hundred. And a few hundred here, and several hundred there. They know you're weak and strive to cultivate that "we're only doing it once...so I guess money isn't that important" mindset.

"Of course, our GOLD package is the best that we have to offer and will make your special day one to remember. If you're interested in being...cheap, we also have a BEIGE package with many good options but lacking those special touches that set the GOLD package apart. And for those who want their wedding to be mocked and their marriage to fail, we make a PUKE BROWN package available."

Mind you, my wife did an awesome job sticking to our budget and knowing where we could cut costs a little. Which was key given that we had like 220 invitees.

I was looking for a funny picture to make fun of all of you (because I love you of course) and instead I ran across this incredibly confusing album cover I thought I would share.

Senor Coconut is so awesome.

Have you heard "El Baile Aleman"?

One of my best friends is Japanese, Philapino, Chinese, and Korean. Does that count?

I onced dated a Jamaican chick, does that count?

And so ends this thread.

I got married in both countries but the only thing I can remember clearly is me trying to set the banquet room on fire with the wedding cake flambée to amuse the guests.

The only advice I can give is to fight tooth and nail the "little" extras the hotel/wedding hall will offer, they are meaningless and add to the bill real fast... ahh! and another thing KK, just say "yes dear" and agree to everything she says, she´ll get angry at you for not making decisions anyways and you´ll skip the fight in between when you point out that having two flower bouquets in a wedding where the bride does not carry a wedding bouquet is 20.000+ yen too expensive.

M.