Doesn’t need to cost as much as it can
I just read an article that claims the average(!) cost of a wedding in Japan is 3.27 million yen. This seems like madness to me. Think of all the other things you could do with that kind of money.
From the same article, this is a breakdown of the average costs for various things:
From the top: wedding ceremony, food and drink (per person), bride’s outfits, makeup and hair, gifts (per person), bouquets (each), flowers for the venue, welcome items(?), photography, and video.
Now those are all optional costs for the wedding.
In Japan, the wedding has no legal status. You get married by filling in a form at city hall, and this is free.
So you can get married for 0 yen if you want to in Japan.
But if you want to have a party the most common option is to go through a commercial venue and employ a wedding planner.
Most young couples are not going to be in a position to pay for the kind of wedding they would like.
And fortunately for them, the way weddings in Japan are set up that cost of the ceremony can largely fall on the guests, not the people getting married. That is one reason for the gifts listed above, which are given to people to take home with them after the ceremony. This means that if you don’t pay as a guest, you are increasing the food and drink and gift cost, but not contributing.
Traditionally in Japan, you would be expected to bring a cash gift if you are invited to a wedding. This can be as little as 10,000 yen, or as much as 100,000 yen or more, depending on your status and/or relationship with the couple.
My wife and I are going to a wedding this weekend, and we’ll be contributing six figures. That’s a pricey meal, as Pete and Bas might say. Very close friends of the family, and apparently we have gravitas now or something.
There is even a saying 結婚式貧乏 (wedding poverty). But it doesn’t have to be like that.
My own wedding cost a fraction of the number above, and we didn’t ask guests to contribute. Here is one alternative to the expensively organised wedding party in Japan.
First of all, we got married at a shrine, not a commercial venue. This cost us 50,000 yen, even on a taian (auspicious day on the calendar). Contrast with the average cost of a ceremony above (350,000 yen).
Second, I bought my own outfit (hakama), and my wife borrowed hers (the traditional white outfit for the shrine ceremony and a couple of dresses). This cost us around 100,000 yen (510,000 average from the article, just for the bride).
Third, we held our wedding party at a restaurant. We were able to book the restaurant completely, and just asked guests to pay for the cost of their food and drink (7,000 yen tabenomihodai all you can eat and drink). The restaurant provided music and entertainment. This didn’t cost us anything.
My wife’s friend is a florist, we got her to provide flowers for a nominal fee.
We also made our own invitations and had to spend a lot of time planning and preparing everything. But the total cost to us was under 200,000 yen, and our guests only had to pay 7,000 yen.
I actually worked in the wedding industry in Japan for a few years, which might have been one reason I avoided doing my own wedding through them! Funnily enough my daughter had a part time job as a waitress in a wedding venue, and it also put her off the big fancy wedding idea.
We had seen how things work, and how much these companies charge for things.
How about you? Did you get married in Japan? What did it look like? Share your story in the comments!
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We got married on the zero yen plan. We’d intended to have a celebration here and get my family to travel, or have one in the US and get my husband’s family to travel, or have one in each country, so no one but us had to travel, but never actually got around to it. Fun to talk about, though.
Hey, it’s never too late 😉
Well, we’re getting close and closer to 40 years, and both sets of parents are gone, now . . .
Also married in a shrine for under 200k, and I think it was more memorable than if we had it in a hotel venue. We hired a company which specializes in low-cost weddings in Asakusa. So it doesn’t have to be expensive even in Tokyo. Hakama and white kimono rental and even got a mini photo album.
Fantastic. I think it is way more interesting for visitors if you have people coming from overseas.
We had immediate family in Japan, NZ and the USA so decided to find a neutral venue for the wedding and decided on Tahiti as it was easy to access for everyone and of course a beautiful tropical island nation! We asked our guests (family) to pay for flights and accomodation themselves (which our parents helped out with). Within Tahiti we decided against more expensive places like Bora Bora and decided on Moorea which is just a short ferry ride from the capital and still very beautiful. We stayed at a cottage over the water and guest stayed in the cheaper cabins on the beach. The ceremony itself was only about 40,000yen and was held on the beach. My wife bought her dress and I just wore a suit from home. We enjoyed dinner together at the hotel restaurant that night.
All in all, it worked out a lot cheaper than a traditional wedding and everyone had a great time and were able to enjoy a holiday themselves.
(btw I hate the Japanese system of paying money as a guest. It really made me dread getting asked to weddings..)