Hopefully by now you’ve been able to look through the photos from Kuniko’s sister’s wedding. I’ve been too busy lately to write it up but I aim to take care of that now.
The wedding was in Okayama, so we caught a bullet train to get there. It’s about a two hour drive, but we wanted to be able to partake of the alcohol and get there and back quickly, so it was worth the roundtrip ticket. We took a slower bullet train that took about 50 minutes to get there. The good news was that there were plenty of seats in the unreserved car.
Upon arriving in Okayama the first thing we noticed was that it was a lot colder than Akashi. I had never been to Okayama before – the station was huge. There were lots of shops, and we noted the locations of some of the better ones so we could do some omiyage shopping on the way home.
We made our way into the ANA Hotel across the street from the station, and then went upstairs and found the location for the wedding. Most of the guests were milling around, but since we were family we went into the special waiting room that is designed to keep everyone together and easily accessible. Kuniko’s parents and aunts and uncles were already waiting inside. We sat down with them and made small talk. This was only the second time that I had met Kuniko’s aunt, and her husband was a really nice guy. He had a military style flat-top, and was very friendly looking. We had some good conversations in the waiting room, and then pretty soon it was time to head out and do family introductions.
Tomoko’s fiancee, Atsushi, had invited a lot of family, and hence the need for Tomoko to invite a lot of her family. Even though we had eight people there representing the Kageyama clan, Atsushi’s family numbered about thirty people. I guess we’re all family now. The introductions on our side went quickly and smoothly, and on their side took a bit longer but everyone was patient. I’m glad there isn’t a test on remembering names, because I couldn’t remember even one name after the intros.
One side note, throughout the wedding I relied on Kuniko and the other members of the Kageyama clan to help me figure out where to stand and what order we should be in. It can be rather complicated and fairly important to do things in just the right order. Interestingly, most of the time I was given the better position, because in Japan it is men first, women second. I found it interesting because even though Kuniko is related by blood, she was still relegated to a secondary position most of the time. I felt strange taking the good spots.
After the introductions we all went to the chapel for the ceremony. It was a good ceremony, and we really enjoyed the performance from the priest. I think he might have been French, but the ceremony was mostly in English with a lot of Japanese sprinkled in as well. Much like our own wedding ceremony, the priest was not particularly good at either English or Japanese, with amusing (to Kuniko and me) results. We struggled to keep a straight face during some of the speeches, and I think we held up admirably.
Atsushi did a great job as the groom, and throughout the wedding he was clearly a very happy man. He had been dating Tomoko for years (eight, to be exact) before she finally agreed to marriage. You could tell that today was the culmination of a lot of patience and hard work. He has a good sense of humor, and when he almost made a wrong turn at the altar he and I shared a giggle. I know how it feels to be up there trying to remember the steps that you practiced just once a while back.
After the ceremony we showered them with satin flower petals (environmentally friendly!), took some pictures as a wedding group and then some studio shots as a new united family, and then went up to the reception lunch upstairs.
The reception was fun, and I drank lots of beer with Kuniko’s uncle – each of us spent our time pouring each other drinks. The food and entertainment was great, and the speeches were mercifully short. There was a slight breach in protocol when Tomoko’s boss, the principal of her school, mentioned the upcoming second party. Since not everyone is invited to the second party, I guess it was a party foul.
Lots of people from Atsushi’s family came by and said hello, and if they were reticent about having a foreigner in the family they didn’t act it at all. Everyone was really nice, and Atsushi’s father was especially talkative to me and we talked about some of the time he spent in America. He enjoyed his time there.
After the reception was over we headed out and waited for Kuniko’s parents to change out of their dress clothes and into street clothes, and then went for coffee across the street at the station. They had invited us to stick around for dinner, but since we had just eaten a huge lunch and there was a lot of time to kill until dinner we decided to skip it and head home early.
After buying some omiyage for Nozaki sensei and for some of my students we caught the next bullet train out of there and headed home. I bumped into some of my ex-students from Takasago in Himeji, and then finally arrived back in Okubo. Instead of heading straight home we went over to Saty and picked up a Wii Fit in order to burn off some of the calories we just put on.
The wedding was a success, and I thought it went really well. Next stop for Atsushi and Tomoko is Paris for a weeklong honeymoon, and then they’ll be back in town for Christmas and the New Year. I’m looking forward to getting to know some of our new relatives, and hopefully we’ll be able to meet up with them again sometime soon.
