The Wedding Procession

The ceremony itself would be pretty simple, so no need for much practice -- the rehearsal was thirty minutes before the ceremony. Greg had no clue what he had to do until then (but typical, right?), nor did we. I guess that was bad for Greg - the anxiety of not knowing what he was to do -- poor guy didn't sleep the night before. During the rehearsal, Fumiko-san's assistant explained things in Japanese, which Fumiko-san translated for Greg and the rest of us. Poor thing was stressed out, she started speaking to her family in English and then stopped herself and said, "What am I thinking, I'm speaking to my family in English!" After signing their Marriage Oath, a few tries at the proper and synchronized way to offer the sacred branches to the Kami , sipping on a salty celebration drink, it was time to line up. Of course, there's protocal for that too, so we lined up according to our relationship to the bride and groom.



It only took five minutes for the wedding party to walk to the shrine. A very surreal five minutes. The processesion drew the attention from the Meiji-Jingu tourists and visitors and they started following alongside the procession, snapping up pictures of Greg and Fumiko-san. It was like they were celebrities with paparazzi stalking them. My cousin Jeff and Fumiko-san's brother-in-law, Masafumi-san were among the paparazzi -- each side of the family can have one designated photographer to fall out of line to capture the moments by photograph or video. Jeff was zigging and zagging around to get different perspectives. I don't think he realized he'd get a workout. Towards the end of the procession, I called out to Jeff to "Take a picture of all the crazy people taking pictures!" I have to admit, I was also a crazy person taking pictures the day before, when we saw a Wedding procession at the shrine. It really is a sight to behold.






Big thanks to cousin Jeff for running around in his suit, snapping pictures.