At the time that Toshi Yoshida completed his woodblock print Early Spring in Amuzino<\/em>, a beautiful traditional rendering of a favorite site to be wed in the Amuzino Mountains, the image of the Japanese wedding had changed much from the natural and serene setting that Toshi\u2019s print suggests.\u00a0 Words like hade<\/em> (meaning \u2018showy\u2019), hanayaka<\/em> (meaning \u2018gay\u2019 or \u2018colorful\u2019) and goka<\/em> (meaning \u2018splendid\u2019 or \u2018gorgeous\u2019) were being used to describe the ceremony and the betrothed were increasingly buying into the pre-packaged wedding.<\/p>\n The Japanese wedding during the late twentieth century entailed many of the traditions familiar to western culture such as the exchange of rings and the cutting of the cake.\u00a0 However, several uniquely Japanese traditions flourished.\u00a0 The Shinto ceremony, which became an integral part of the Japanese wedding, succeeded at integrating ancient Japanese tradition into the increasingly commercialized ceremony.\u00a0 Perhaps, even, it was the Shinto ceremony that fueled its rapid commercialization, as it required specific elements relating to venue, for both ceremony and reception, and trained personal to perform the still unfamiliar rituals.<\/p>\n The Shinto ceremony, despite its roots in ancient Japanese tradition, has been a relatively recent addition to the wedding experience.\u00a0 The ritual was first devised for the imperial wedding of Crown Prince Yoshito, which marked the first imperial wedding since the early Meiji Restoration.\u00a0 It harmoniously combined religious aspects reminiscent of Christianity with Shinto tradition, and, in effect, succeeded in reviving the imperial wedding on the whole.\u00a0 Following the Shinto wedding ceremony\u2019s debut, Shinto shrines began receiving requests for similar ceremonies for the common man, and thus started the tradition. The shrines used for these ceremonies are composed of one room, and are reserved solely for wedding ceremonies.\u00a0 The Shinto ceremony incorporated elements akin to those of familiar Shinto rituals including acts of purification, prayer, invocation and offering.\u00a0 Other, more distinctly associated with weddings, included the exchange of rings, the recitation of vows and the sharing of sake cup.<\/p>\n The wedding day itself requires a large investment of both time and money, and is the product of a compromise established to reconcile the couple\u2019s wishes with that of their parents.\u00a0 Many hours are required to prepare the wedding party, especially to dress the bride. \u00a0The donning of the bridal kimono is elaborate and often requires the bride to arrive two hours earlier than the rest of the party.\u00a0\u00a0 The groom also wears a formal kimono, however, at this time the western suit and gown were gaining popularity among young couples.\u00a0 The nakodo<\/em> is also a very important part of the entire proceeding.\u00a0 These appointed \u201cgo-betweens\u201d are required to play an active role in maintaining the couple\u2019s welfare.\u00a0 The nakodo<\/em> are a married couple, selected by the couple, who represent the \u201csuccessful marriage\u201d and demonstrate the betrotheds proximity to the marital ideal through their physical proximity to the betrothed.\u00a0 Thus, throughout much of the ceremony, the nakado<\/em> are especially close to the couple, taking a special place of honor that separates them from the rest of the guests.<\/p>\n However, these very general descriptions of the day\u2019s proceedings and the general practices of the late twentieth century Japanese wedding do not reveal the manufactured nature that the Japanese wedding had begun to assume.\u00a0 The location of these ceremonies seems to shed a bit more light onto the rapid commercialization of this sacred rite.\u00a0 Around this time, the wedding parlor was growing in popularity.\u00a0 It offered convenience and services that the more traditional setting could not.\u00a0 Today, couples can buy an entire pre-packaged wedding, from ceremony, to reception, to the plastic cake with a pre-cut slot into which the bride and groom can slide their knife.\u00a0 Parlors have even gone so far as to include special effects such as laser displays as part of the wedding package.<\/p>\n When Yoshida completed Early Spring in Amuzino<\/em>, which was eventually given as a gift to his newly wed son, shrine and temple weddings had significantly declined in popularity, with only 4.5% of all weddings taking place at such sites.\u00a0 It was, without a doubt, the parlor and hotel weddings that dominated the scene, accounting for 29.9% and 42.7% of all weddings, respectively.\u00a0 Even in the 1970\u2019s, temple and shrine weddings only accounted for 11.8% of weddings at that time (Goldstein-Gidoni 44).\u00a0 However, this change that occurred between the 1970\u2019s and 1989 (the year Yoshida finished the piece), while small, remains suggestive of the shift from the tranquil wedding ceremony, much like the scene so eloquently articulated in Early Spring in Amuzino<\/em>, to the commercialized and unashamedly gaudy modern wedding.<\/p>\n Edwards, Walter.\u00a0 Modern Japan Through Its Weddings: Gender, Person, and Society in Ritual Portrayal.\u00a0 Stanford University Press: Stanford, 1989.<\/p>\n Goldstein-Gidoni, Ofra.\u00a0 Packaged Japaneseness: Weddings, Business and Brides.University of Hawaii Press: Honolulu, 1997.<\/p>\n \u201cWedding Traditions.\u201d 01 May 06 <http:\/\/hec.osu.edu\/people\/ebradshaw\/wedding\/wedding_traditions.htm>.<\/p>\n Disclaimer<\/em><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Japanese Weddings in the Late Twentieth Century At the time that Toshi Yoshida completed his woodblock print Early Spring in Amuzino, a beautiful traditional rendering of a favorite site to be wed in the Amuzino Mountains, the image of the Japanese wedding had changed much from the natural and serene setting that Toshi\u2019s print suggests.\u00a0 … Continue reading “Rachael Sexton”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":261,"featured_media":0,"parent":378,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"page-full_width.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-495","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/kucera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/kucera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/kucera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/kucera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/261"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/kucera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/kucera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":581,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/kucera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/495\/revisions\/581"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/kucera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/kucera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Sources:<\/h4>\n
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