September 13

Up to now, I haven't written too much about private affairs on this page, but I've been focusing on things from my position as an editor. This time, however, I'd like to make an exception and write about something that couldn't be any more private. Today’s entry will be about my own wedding party.

The actual wedding took place already a while ago, but as people kept asking me and my wife Harumi when we were going to throw a party, we finally decided that we couldn't escape any longer…

We did try to escape for a while because we were sick of all those habits related to wedding parties and banquets. There were more things about wedding parties we wanted to avoid than things we wanted to do, so we decided to go for a very simple little event.
Our ideas: 1) Reasonable fees and no tips, but also no thanks-for-coming gifts. 2) A party in the evening with only light snacks. 3) No sentimental speeches, recitals or video screenings. 4) No host (I do that myself) and no tedious talk. 5) Only one speech, and only one toast. 6) No amateur entertainment. 7) Group photo sessions. 8) Live music performed by a friend.

Shinoyama Kishin’s speech

These were the things we worked out together, and based on these rules we organized everything by ourselves without any help from professional party services. Now this may sound like a neatly planned event, but to realize it turned out to be much harder than we'd thought. There are hundreds of things that have to be agreed on, starting already with making and sending out invitations, and we ended up having quite a few fights over this and that.

The day of the party. In the morning, my wife and myself, plus our parents and my wife’s brother hold a little ceremony at Kanda Myojin. Me wearing a crested ceremonial skirt, and my wife dressed in a formal kimono, look at each other, and before we have a chance to get used to feeling like actors in a historical play, the ceremony is over. We all move over to the Yamanoue Hotel to have some tempura, and from there proceed to Nakameguro. We use my office as a waiting room while Michiru works on my wife’s hair-do. I use the time to finish the still incomplete guest list in a hurry, before we enter the nearby restaurant "Higashiyama Tokyo". That’s where the party takes place.

We didn't choose this restaurant because it’s close to my office. I always liked the shop and its owner’s attitude, and I chose in fact the place for my current office because it’s near the restaurant. So it was only natural that we celebrate our wedding here.
At the restaurant, I do a detailed brainstorming with my friends in charge of the reception desk, double-check the food and drink menu with the chefs and waiters, and make a sound-check with the music guy. There’s some trouble with the equipment, and both the first and second performer fight with a badly balanced sound system. The party is about to begin, and as a number of guests are already waiting outside, the restaurant staff ask me if they could let them in. We open the doors as planned at 4 p.m., but sound-checks still continue… Rehearsing in front of an audience is not exactly what musicians prefer, so we end the rehearsals only ten minutes later.

Oh, and where the hell is my wife?!? I call her and learn that the hair-do takes some more time and she can't leave my office yet. I press her to come over anyway, and finally, another ten minutes later she shows up. She brings along Suzuki Takayuki, who made her dress. He makes some final adjustments to her costume and to my own necktie, and finally we're all ready to go. We signal the restaurant staff to start the music, and do the bride-and-groom parade to Quincy Jones’s "Soul Bossa Nova".

My wife is first to say a few words, to which I add only a very brief address before passing the mic to one of our few common acquaintances and gifted speaker at such occasions, Shinoyama Kishin. He jokes about my stubbornness as an editor that apparently makes me rather uncomfortable to work with, and then leaves the rostrum for art director Nakajima Hideki, who designed our invitation card and gives the toast this time. After that it’s chat time, and while dividing the guests into five groups, we have some group photos made by Tsuruta Naoki.

Shimizu Yasuaki playing a Bach Prelude

Nomiya Maki singing

The highlight of the party is a live performance by Yasuaki Shimizu. He plays us his saxophone rendition of a Prelude from Bach’s "Cello Suites". I've heard him play this at various places in the past, and the cozy Higashiyama turns out to be another exceptional setting for the Prelude. Next after Shimizu’s disarming performance is Nomiya Maki, who sings for us Pizzicato Five’s "Magic Carpet Ride", a decent song that’s just perfect for a wedding party and helps the still overwhelmed audience relax. I really love that song, so much that I enthused about how I'd always wanted to have Nomiya-san sing it at my own wedding party when I invited her. Now that I see and hear her sing it right in front of me, I feel how my tear glands start to swell.

After the guests' loud applause for Nomiya-san, we have another photo taken of the entire crowd, and call it a day at 6 p.m.

At the exit I shake each guest’s hand and give them the party’s staff list along with a Nakameguro gourmet map that I made especially for this occasion. After everybody has left the restaurant, I pay various bills, and return with my wife to my office, where we change our clothes, and finally have a moment to sit down and relax while sorting the flowers and other gifts we received. We're both totally exhausted but happy that "we've finally done it!"

For me personally, this wedding party somehow felt like just another editing job - planning, casting, calculating, scheduling and executing, with the little difference that here our guests are taking photos of me together with my wife. One of them said to me at the end, "It was fun, I wouldn't mind if you did this every day!" Well, I don't believe I'll do it a second time…