Radical difference between East and West regarding relationships and marriage

[Silverpoint]

Usually nowadays, the guests pay everything as they have to pay a fixed amount of money (usually 10.000 to 30.000yen in Tokyo, depending on the formality of the party, but I heard it could be over 100.000yen in some regions). That replaces the gift and pays for all the wedding's expenses.

Since I'm getting married soon, perhaps I can give a little more insight into this process. I was in two minds about revealing the exact cost of my wedding party, but since this is basically anonymous (no one knows me other than as Silverpoint) I think I can safely fill you in on the details. I'll give (approximate) dollar figures as well for those who aren't familiar with Japanese yen.

My wedding will cost about 2,000,000 yen (about $20,000). This is reasonably high for Hokkaido where I live. Down south, especially in Tokyo, costs can be a lot higher.

Of this, each guest who attends the wedding will pay 12,000 yen ($60) and we will have about 75 guests. So in total the guests will pay about 900,000 yen ($9,000). Each guest absolutely has to pay. If you and your partner are both guests at our wedding you have to pay for both people. It's also worth pointing out that any singletons who come to our wedding who get married in the future will be pretty much obliged to invite us to their wedding, so over the coming years we will end up paying back a large amount of the money we receive.

This figure is pretty standard for Hokkaido. In Tokyo the guest fee is more likely to be 30,000 yen ($150) which is exactly what I paid to attend a friend's wedding last year. Although Maciamo mentioned that he's heard of wedding fees costing 100,000+ yen, I'd suggest this would be extremely unusual. Even if the couple getting married are wealthy, there are always going to be guests for whom 100,000 yen is a serious amount of money and considerably more than they could afford.

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.

Tradition dictates that we have to provide a gift to every guest that attends (nothing major - just a token offering to thank them for coming). Each person will get exactly the same gift. Hotels keep a catalogue of gifts which the couple can choose from. I believe that our gift to each person will cost 1,650 yen which doesn't sound like a lot, but multiply it by 75 and you get 123,750 yen (or over $1,200 worth of booty which we have to give back). This money is provided by us.

All the money from the guests goes immediately to the hotel. Rather than financing the entire wedding, the guests pay only for their meal which is a fairly lavish affair (I believe it's 7 courses, although I'd need to check). The price of the meal is set by the hotel and is usually the same in pretty much every hotel you visit. Guests usually know the 'local' rate and so it would be impossible for us to ask for more.



One thing that is interesting about Japanese weddings is who gets to attend. Certainly in England (and I daresay in many other 'western' countries) people generally get invited as couples. For example if I invited a co-worker, they would normally get to bring their wife/partner along. However in Japan, only people who are personally known to the people getting married are generally invited. So if if neither myself or my fiancee knows the co-workers wife or husband, they simply don't get invited. This works quite well for two reasons. 1) Everyone who attends knows the couple getting married. There are no people who feel a bit out of place because they've just been invited as a token gesture. 2) It avoids partners of guests having to pay to go to a wedding where they don't really know anyone.

If anyone has any burning questions, I'd be happy to try and answer them.

[Keoland]

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

[Silverpoint]

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

Yes it is. It was one of the factors in our decision to get married in Japan. An equivalent wedding in London where I'm from would cost probably 3 or 4 times as much.