The Wedding Party So Awesome They Had It Again!

Way back in mid-December a man with exceptionally bad teeth that I'd never met or seen in my life before invited me to his wedding party, possibly while under the influence of alcohol. Not really knowing, or particularly wanting, to say 'no' to his toothy grin I accepted and put it mostly out of mind for some time. Two weeks ago a couple of the Japanese members of Kusu's English conversation circle reminded me of the upcoming day and said they'd pick me up that Sunday. Amidst driving rain and freezing wind we headed to the hall gussied up in our finest along with around seventy other guests, many of them in full-on kimono and whatnot, which was intimidating—I mean, this is my first Japanese wedding party and I'm the only foreigner in the room, so I wanted to make a decent impression for the team. Nobody can ever say I didn't try to stem the tide of nations queuing up to hate on America.


Domo arigatou, Mr. Matto

As I gazed upon the spread at my table that included such unusual wedding dinner fare as fine sushi alongside fried chicken, pizza and bottle-upon-bottle of beer, I noticed an unusual banner behind the bride and groom's table. Translated it read “Eiji and Izumi's Second Wedding Get Together”. At first I thought this meant they'd been married before, split and reconciled, but actually it merely meant this was their second party, the first being in Izumi's hometown of Hita. A glance around at the guests and another thing was made apparent: this was a complete sausage fest. I think there were about fifteen women in the hall total, counting the hostesses serving us too. I felt sorry for the handful of really attractive ones as there's nothing that'll make decent men lose faith in their gender than a roomful of drunk Japanese men in the presence of a beauty. The reason for the sea of testosterone is that most were members of the same para gliding club as the groom, which led to at least three really funny toasts to the bride and groom where every aspect of married life was compared to various atmospheric effects or para gliding procedures. “Let your love always catch updrafts” and other horribly corny C-list toast lines like that.

All the guests brought wedding gifts for Eiji and Izumi. I didn't. Actually, I was told by my two friends, Nobu and Kuma, not to bring anything and soon found out why. They didn't bring anything either except for bass and electric guitars and their gift was to perform for the bride and groom at the party—and apparently so was my gift! “Matt, can you sing 'Stand by Me' while we play guitar?” So with about fifteen minutes to psych myself up and go over the lyrics in my head I was shoved on stage, handed a microphone and told to be a wedding singer. I'm willing to bet there are photos of me on one knee belting out “So darling, darling, stand...” but I've yet to see them. Maybe it's for the best.

Nobu and Kuma went on to do some acoustic stuff and I took my seat and polished off a beer. While I was swilling that down the groom disappeared until the set finished, then reappeared in a Japanese demon costume, arousing my “WTF” sense immediately. He was soon joined on stage by one of the other guests and the two started up a manzai routine. Manzai is like the Japanese equivalent of two-man standup comedy in the same vein as Abbot and Costello or Laurel and Hardy, but I couldn't tell what the hell they were joking about so I just looked on in curious amusement and drank more beer. I didn't get drunk here in case you're curious, but I certainly drank my fill over the course of the three hour party, and for good reason. You see, Japanese wedding parties aren't like Western ones where the costs are taken on by the bride and groom—I paid 3,000 J-bucks to get in here, much to my surprise. Sort of made me feel better about not bringing a proper gift.


The groom, Eiji, striking an innocent pose as some hideous male take on Lum (I spent entirely too much of my youth watching and reading Urusei Yatsura)

So modern Japanese wedding parties, in conclusion, aren't all that different than their Western counterparts with exceptions being that guests have to pay-to-play, sushi and pizza are companions on one's plate and people dress up in demon costumes. I was really hoping for some pagan goat sacrifices and naked prostration in front of a jello statue of Bob Barker with his arms crossed, but no such luck.

So, note to the future Mrs. Matthew Lopez, if you're reading this, see what you can do about Bob Barker jello molds, OK?

--Matt