Quote Originally Posted by Silverpoint
As you can see the money from our guests is considerably short of paying for the entire wedding (about 1.1 million yen short in fact!). The rest of the money is provided by myself and my fiancee, and both sets of parents. In recognition of the high cost of my entire family coming out to Japan for the wedding, my fiancee's father has insisted that his contribution should be higher. If both sets of parents were Japanese, I don't know for sure what would happen.
Whaa...?

Over here, the cheapest of the cheapest weddings (a traditional one, unless you just show up at the civil registry, which isn't a proper wedding at all) is 10,000 euro [1,367,000 yen].

But that's the lowest! An average wedding - like my cousin's - went up to 20,000 euro (2,734,000 yen) and they go up to 50,000 euro (6,835,000 yen).

To compensate, the absolute minimum fee a guest has to give is 150 euro (20,500 yen), which is what I give, though it can go up to as high as 500 euro (68,400 yen). So guests effectively pay for the party, as long as you manage to invite enough of them (100-200 is recommended).

As a comparison of the cost of living, the *average* monthly wage here is 600 euro (82,000 yen).

So I reckon marrying in Japan is actually quite cheap...

Regards,
Keoland