Tiny (western) Garden Wedding in Kyoto Celebrant Needed

[greenapples]

Hi there,

My fiance (American) and I (Australian) are getting married in Kyoto in November. We both love Japan and wanted an excuse to take our families to see the places we love around Japan. We decided instead of paying for a wedding in Australia or America, it would cost the same to have a Japanese trip with our families (and more fun in our opinion)

For this reason, we are only having a very small ceremony, us plus 9-10 guests. We are not Japanese and feel that, for us, a Shinto wedding feels disingenuous. We would like to have a very simple, casual ceremony, outdoors amongst the autumn leaves I understand that this is not the 'standard' way weddings are done in Japan, but I imagine every now and again, people do get married in this way. I don't mind having the wedding at a shinto shrine, or anywhere else religious but I don't feel comfortable dressing in a kimono and doing the traditional ceremony. We do not require anything in addition to the ceremony as we have booked a dinner at a restaurant in Kyoto and will have our own clothing, photographer etc.

Can anyone suggest
a) a nice park/venue that might be inconspicuous (and not disrespectful) to have a short ceremony
b) a more standard wedding venue (outdoors) that would accept a non-traditional Japanese ceremony
c) An English speaking celebrant (or a resource for helping to find such a person)

I have been looking at the Kibune Shrine, this is the kind of ambiance we are after I am trying to find out if they offer the most basic package (ceremony only) with an English speaking celebrant (not sure yet) * I've just had an update that Kibune Shrine does not have English speaking celebrants

Please know that our desire to have our wedding in Japan is out of our respect and love for Japan's beautiful nature, people and culture, and our wish to have our wedding in a Western style is more out of respect for that culture and not wanting to make light of the traditions that we don't feel 'belong' to us. I hope that makes sense!

I appreciate any assistance you can offer :?

 

[tomoni]

Hello,

Were you able to get a celebrant? I am not sure if you are familiar with the wedding service industry in Japan. many celebrants are just "guys" who live in Japan and do weddings as a part-time gig. So if that is what you are looking for you could probably find someone.

If you belong to the catholic church, you could ask them to do it. (there are various other churches that may be able to help you) but i suppose it depends on what you are looking for.

 

[greenapples]

Hello Tomoni,

Thank you for your response. We are not Catholic, and don't wish to have a religious ceremony. My main trouble is finding the celebrant! It sounds like Australia, where celebrants do the job part-time, but I cannot seem to find a directory of people to contact anywhere online.

We did find Kibune Shrine packages that do suit us, but they only provide the ceremony in Japanese (understandably!) Perhaps we will choose to do that and bring along a translator. I am still not sure, it's been very difficult!

If you have any contacts or information on where I can find (English speaking) celebrants to contact, I would appreciate it. I am slowly learning Japanese but I am not yet good enough to read Japanese websites!

All the best,
Shell

 

[tomoni]

Based upon celebrant weddings that I have attended, they usually do "religious themed" "celebrations" (they are also usually dressed as priests, and have a supplied text (in Japanese usually) and then may say something in English at some point which used to be very stylish.

It is a "show" more than anything. I would suggest you google becoming a celebrant in Japan, to get a feel for the "celebrant industry", and see if that is really what you are looking for.

Some problems you may have are that the celebrants usually do a full day of weddings (at between 20,000-30,000 per wedding) so I do nothing that you will easily find a veteran celebrant to lose a work day for one wedding.

Most wedding chapels, will not just let you "use" their celebrant, because they make their money on the wedding package.

So you might be able to get a freelancer or "retired" celebrantﾂ…

Or perhaps you could ask your best man, and mains of hours, or you parents to do itﾂ… Another method that I have seen here was the couple doing their marriage vows by themselvesﾂ…