Getting Married-Japanese Style?
In Japan, too, weddings are different these days. A popular wedding is a seiyaku, which means “sincere vow or promise.” Although less than one percent of all Japanese are Christian, 80 percent choose this Western-style Christian wedding. It certainly looks like a Western wedding; the bride wears a white gown, for example, and the groom wears a tuxedo. It also closely follows all the steps in a Christian wedding: there is the processional (in which the bride walks down the center aisle of the church to join the groom at the front), hymns (religious songs), readings of Christian scriptures, the exchange of vows, and of course the wedding kiss. In fact, some people say that this new Japanese-Christian wedding is more traditional than most Christian weddings in the West, except for the fact that the couple is usually careful to choose a “lucky day” for the ceremony. So why do so many Japanese choose this style of wedding when the Japanese culture already has rich, beautiful marriage traditions? One answer may be that this is a trend, and the Japanese are somewhat famous for following new trends. Another reason may be that traditional Japanese weddings are even more expensive than those in the Western style.