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Ceremony/exchange of vows for a casual, non-religious, cross-cultural wedding. Help please!

menkoiiimenkoiii member
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in Wedding Vows & Ceremony Discussions
Hi everyone,

Before I start, I should say I'm a Canadian living permanently in Japan getting married to my Japanese fiancee this August :) So the norms don't apply in some ways but I am just looking for some advice! We are avoiding doing things the 'typical' Japanese way (either huge hotel wedding or a shrine/temple) but also obviously are not doing it the typical Canadian way either.

Our date is August 3. I just read a threat telling someone not to have a ceremony if you have already been to city hall, but I think things work differently here. We will get married at city hall the week before, but that is just actually filing the paperwork. Often people in Japan file the paperwork and then have a ceremony at a church, shrine, etc. I don't really understand it myself. :)

So we have a restaurant booked out for the evening of August 3 and about 30 guests. A good friend of mine who is American will 'officiate' (and I will need to figure someone out to translate for his family since the person I had in mind will be very pregnant!) I don't especially want a 'ceremony' per se, but I would like to do something - maybe exchange vows, make a speech, etc. Then we will have dinner and a bit of entertainment, a slideshow and a bit of live music from some friends.

Since I have been to very few weddings in my time, can anyone share with me a non-religious, fairly casual 'ceremony' or something similar, or give me any ideas how to structure it? I know I am being very vague but we are kind of breaking tradition here in many ways so I don't have much to compare it to.

Thanks <3
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Re: Ceremony/exchange of vows for a casual, non-religious, cross-cultural wedding. Help please!

  • southernbelle0915southernbelle0915 mod
    First Anniversary First Answer First Comment 5 Love Its
    I don't know the legal requirements in Japan. But if I were you, I'd look more into this. If you can be legally married at your actual ceremony, you absolutely should. You're presumably asking people to spend thousands of dollars to travel overseas to witness a wedding, I would do everything in your power to make sure they do. Not just a symbolic ceremony.

    Anyway, try googling "secular ceremony transcripts/examples". Read a bunch of them to find bits and pieces you like. Then write your own ceremony. If a friend is officiating, you can just give them a transcript (ahead of time) and have them read it. 

    We wrote our own ceremony and vows. For the ceremony, we researched and just picked things we liked (as suggested above). For the vows, we wrote from the heart. I know a lot of people will do them separately, but we wrote ours together. We decided what promises we wanted to make to each other and what was important to us as a couple.

    The advantage of writing your own ceremony and vows is that you can have someone translate in written form and give it to your guests who don't speak English so they can follow along. That way, if the translator is unable to attend, you have a back up plan.
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  • Maggie0829Maggie0829 member
    First Anniversary First Answer First Comment 5 Love Its
    I just did a quick Google search and the only way for a marriage to be legal is for the couple to register at the local municipal office.  So no ceremony, whether it be officiated by a person of the cloth or a friend (ordained or not) would not be seen as a legal marriage.

    I think many times people will have a ceremony in a church, shrine, etc because they want their chosen religion to recognize their marriage.  If you and your FI are not religious and do not care whether a religion recognizes your marriage then an additional ceremony isn't necessary.

    I can understand wanting to share this experience with your family and friends though.  So you need to make sure that you word your invites and such as a vow renewal since you will already be married on August 3rd.  Or you can wait to submit your paperwork until the day of your planned event.  For example, you can have your ceremony and then (depending on how long doing so will take) head to the government office to submit your paper work and then proceed with your reception (just make sure that your guests are hosted during this time period).

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