Wedding Reception

Finally, here are some pictures from our wedding reception in Japan.  It was held at Meiji Kinenkan in Tokyo, a large and very nice wedding/banquet facility.  It was amazing.  They even had their own in-house photography studio for doing portraits.  The day we were there, they hosted a total of 34 wedding events.

Here are some nice pictures Isako's brother took of us.  Isako really liked my white pom-pom, which kept the outermost layer (jacket) from sliding off my shoulders.  Isako is wearing her own kimono, which was a gift from her grandmother when Isako turned 20 for the "coming of age" occasion in Japan.

My mom took this picture, which shows the intricacy of the bow on the back of Isako's kimono very well.  The belt, or "obi," is just one long, very thick sheet of silk that's about a foot wide and 2-3 meters long, and it's tied into the bow.  It took 3 attendants about 45 minutes to dress Isako.  It ONLY took me 30 minutes with 2 attendants!  (and yes.. she cut her hair short enough - approximately 10 inches - so she could do a total up-do, unlike at the wedding in Monterey where she had too much hair to do that)  Isako says that the brides in Japan have it easy... They have professionals catering to everything all day long.  All the bride has to do is show up at the ceremony/reception site and she doesn't even need to know how to dress herself (even in western-style wedding gowns)!  The wedding site even has an in-house bridal shop with everything you need.

And here we are after it's all over, back in our traditional western-style clothing.  What a relief.  You can't imagine how hot and tight those kimonos are.

And, last but not least, time to head home.  We used frequent flier miles to upgrade to business class on United - wow!  I could literally stretch my legs out completely straight in front of me, and there were still a few inches of clearance to the seat in front of me.  On the way home we were on the upper deck of the 747, which was cool.