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May 29 2012 16 Comments

A(nother) Meiji Shrine wedding

The first time I saw a wedding at Tokyo’s Meiji Shrine, I marvelled at its timelessness, not to mention the elaborate outfits and graceful movements of the procession. A special moment I considered myself very lucky to witness.

But on each subsequent visit, I saw more and more weddings. Sometimes two or three in quick succession. Plus a fairly recent look at a (regular?) weekend schedule detailed what appeared to be a staggering sixteen ceremonies in a single day.

Yet despite knowing this. And having seen so many. The beauty of each and every one hasn’t dimmed in the slightest.

Meiji Shrine wedding

Categorized: Culture, Photography, Religion

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Taki says

    5/29/2012 at 11:25 am

    16 in a day?? Unbelievable. That must be 1 every 30 minutes. A Shinto JIT wedding factory

    Reply
    • Lee says

      5/29/2012 at 2:54 pm

      Yeah, basically. Must be a huge money maker.

      Reply
  2. winnie says

    5/29/2012 at 12:35 pm

    Beautiful shot!
    I think Shinto Wedding is interesting. I wish I can witness too!
    To have 16 ceremonies in a day, it really amazing! 🙂

    Reply
    • Lee says

      5/29/2012 at 2:56 pm

      Thanks Winnie. Turn up on a Saturday or Sunday and you are petty much guaranteed to see at least one.

      Reply
      • MrSatyre says

        5/30/2012 at 6:36 am

        Exactly what happened to me on a Sunday. Had no idea it was so frequent, tho’!

        Reply
        • Lee says

          5/30/2012 at 9:00 am

          No, me neither. They have evening ceremonies too which must be great to see.

          Reply
  3. Hans ter Horst says

    5/29/2012 at 3:10 pm

    Six months after my marriage, my wife and I had a Shinto ceremony in the lovely shrine of Shiogama, up north. Amazing experience with the performance of the Miko, etc. and lots of other symbolic handlings.
    I loved wearing a kimono, the layers of silk are incredibly cool to wear. The experience would have been complete if they had given me a katana to hold only for a minute . No such luck, the only thing I got to hold was a fan. The weird thing is that my wife’s wedding kimono did contain a sheathed dagger (kaiken) which I found sums up marriage in a great way. 🙂

    Reply
    • Lee says

      5/29/2012 at 6:56 pm

      Wow. Sounds like it was quite a day. A presumably much more intimate affair than those at Meiji Jingu too. Pity you didn’t get chance to brandish a katana, but that’s fascinating about the dagger. Fingers crossed it was only for the wedding day!

      Reply
  4. psteier says

    5/29/2012 at 7:49 pm

    These are less ‘timeless’ than it seems. Shinto shrine weddings were created in the Meiji period based on Western wedding customs. They may also have been designed to remove Buddhist priests from the operation. Before then, most wedding ceremonies occurred at home.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      5/29/2012 at 10:36 pm

      Cheers, I had no idea about that. Interesting stuff. Especially them being based on Western wedding customs.

      Reply
  5. Iwao Yamamoto says

    5/30/2012 at 5:34 am

    It’s a Shinto style:神道. In a row in the picture an umbrella is seen. The umbrella was permitted to only to noble people in older Japan. Or the couple are from noble status? Maybe not so I think. But Toyotomi HIdeyosi was allowed to take that kind of umbrella after he became the nobility though he was born as a peasant son.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      5/30/2012 at 9:02 am

      Ah, ok. I had no idea the parasol had such significance. At Meiji Shrine weddings, however, it just seems to be part of the regular ceremony.

      Reply
  6. Hans ter Horst says

    5/30/2012 at 3:16 pm

    I guess the parasol has lost that meaning some time ago: when my wife and I had our Shinto ceremony, we were also followed by a similar parasol and even though my wife is from an impoverished samurai family on her mother’s side, I doubt that a gaikokujin would have qualified 🙂

    Reply
    • Lee says

      5/30/2012 at 4:10 pm

      No, not in the slightest!

      Reply
  7. Hans ter Horst says

    6/23/2012 at 6:32 pm

    I visited the Meiji Shrine today and today there were 18 weddings scheduled and during the 45 minutes we spent there, we saw 5 or 6 weddings, I lost count. I had a chat with one of the guards and he pulled out a large schedule with lots of information as to what shrine area the wedding took place, etc. I also had a chat with a Miko and she said that this time of the year was most popular which surprises me a little as it is supposed to be the rainy season. The ceremony is 1530000 yen in the weekend (40 persons) or 980000 yen (20 persons) but weekdays are a bargain at 380000 yen.

    What surprised me the most was that all the bridegrooms looked like they were 20 or 22 at most, so young!!

    Reply
    • Lee says

      6/25/2012 at 11:36 am

      Cheers for the extra info. Wow, that’s a lot of weddings. An awful lot of money the shrine is pulling in too.

      I presume it’s the desire to be a ‘June bride’ that makes this time of year so popular, despite the possibly inclement weather.

      Interesting you should mention the age. I’ve noticed how a lot of the couples seem to be very young too. Arguably not what you’d expect at somewhere as traditional as Meiji Jingu.

      Reply

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