Our Japanese wedding

On the 28th December the Delightful Miss E and I married at the Jozan Inari Jinja in Matsue, a small and humble single-room shrine at the top of a long flight of stone stairs just behind the Castle grounds. The shrine is surrounded by the gardens of the Castle district, and ringed with old, decaying stone foxes. The moment Emma and I saw it we wanted to try and hold our wedding here, and to do it in Japanese style (Shinzen). Being away from home we timed the wedding to coincide with the holiday of three of our friends (Aislinn, Paul and Emily) and invited those of our local friends who could come. Because the shrine is Shinto, this ceremony was conducted in Shinto style, a style so simple and unprepossessing that we were able to get through the whole thing with limited mistakes inside of just 20 minutes, and with 1 rehearsal.

Friends gathered for this wedding were: the incredibly handsome Mr. Hiroki and his pretty and charming girlfriend Miss K, who attended in a Kimono; the redoubtale Miss Kana, fresh back from a 3 month stint farming in Mexico; her friend Miss Hiroko, inseparable from Miss Kana except when she is in Mexico; the superlative Detective M, Miss E's erudite friend from Hiroshima; and our 3 Australian friends. Other friends of Miss E's were unable to attend due to work commitments, but the superbly crazy Crazy Aya was able to come and congratulate us the very next day. Some of my readers may remember the sterling lasses Miss Kana and Miss Hiroko from my birthday celebrations, and of course everyone will by now be familiar with the stunningly splendid Mr. Hiroki, my Tottori Regent.

In my next post I shall describe the ceremony in more detail, and include some more photos.

Having conducted the ceremony successfully, we retired to the Ohashikan Ryokan, where we had a lunch reception for our friends before they all departed for their respective towns. The ryokan is a traditional style of Japanese hotel, and the food was classic Japanese cooking with lots of wine. The option to visit the Ryokan's onsen afterwards was declined on account of our not being able to dress ourselves in the complex kimono we were wearing.

The day was filled with presents, good cheer and all the best wishes which good friends can give to two young people very much in love. Now comes the happy task of basking in our post-wedding calm and reading the many wedding presents our distant friends sent us. The well wishes of distant friends are held particularly dear on this day, when two people draw closer together through a simple ceremony of commitment, and knowing our friends and family were thinking of us from afar made the day all the more special for both of us. Some of the following posts, with little details of the wedding and more pictures, may help my readers to understand why. The full range of photos is available at the Illustrations for the chronicle, and also more photos may be viewed at the Delightful Miss E's blog.