Today, in our Insta-live,we talked about the traditional wedding.
I want to share this topic with you!
Now, the most common wedding dress for a bride is the Western wedding dress,but in the olden days, brides wore a kimono called shiromuku.
Siho is white in Japanese, muku is pure, Innocent...
In Japan, it has been customary for brides to wear a white wedding dress since around the Heian period. Because White is a color that can be dyed any color,
so it also had the meaning of being dyed in the color of the groom's family from now on.
Until our grandparents' generation, marriage in Japan was considered to be a marriage between families rather than a marriage between individuals.
The color white is believed to ward off evil spirits,
and white has long been used in the costumes of those who serve the gods. White also means purity.
Well, now! let me tell you about my wedding.
Wow,that was almost 20years ago…
Since I am not religious, when marriage I was wondering where to hold my wedding. I think I am totally non typical Japanese.
So,I was wondering if it would be strange to hold a wedding ceremony in a church even though I am not a Christian.
I still don't know if this is the right answer or not, but I wondered if Shintoism,
which is still an indigenous religion in Japan, is still the natural way to go.
So we decided to have the ceremony at a shrine.
To be honest, I was not interested in wedding ceremony at all and had not thought about having a wedding ceremony,
but I thought it would be memorable, so we decided to have a wedding ceremony at a shrine.
In the Shinto ceremony, a ceremony is held to signify the "vow of matrimony" by sipping sake in front of the gods.
Now that I can show you the pictures, I am glad we had the ceremony!
And in the old days, a matchmaker（Nakoudo in Japanese) was always present at weddings. The matchmaker was the couple, who arranged and facilitated the wedding. It was more like a marriage between one family and another, surrounded by many relatives rather than friends.