Ryan and Jo Go Nihon!: A Nice Day for a Western-Style Wedding

Hey gang, it's me again! We're really making up for lost time with all these posts, ain't we?

Well, this time around, I wanna talk to you about a very sensitive subject: love and marriage. You see, recently, Ryan and I were able to attend a celebration following the nuptials of his co-worker, Satsuki. That's right -- we were invited to a Japanese wedding reception!

Of course, we couldn't show up wholly unprepared. We had to get in the mood first. And what better thing to put oneself in a romantic frame of mind than a little rock?

Yes, I admit it. We went to a rock concert right before the reception. In our wedding clothes. Crushed amidst a horde of sweaty, beer-stained young people. And the lame thing is, the band we went to see (Sambomaster) had to cancel because of the earthquake in Sendai! Oh well. At least we got to see these cool dudes, Kegawa no Maries, who sounded a lot like the Ramones or the Rolling Stones mixed with occasional traces of rockabilly flare. And check out the hair!

We only got to see about 15-minutes-worth of this band before we had to dash off to the reception. Their name was Dohatsuten, and apparently they bill themselves as an R&E group. R&E, of course, stands for rhythm and enka (Japanese folk music). As you can probably tell from this picture, that descriptor is a load of bull roar -- they were straight-up heavy rock. Which is what everyone was there to hear in the first place, so it worked out nicely.

The bride and groom, Satsuki and Tsuyoshi. This was Satsuki's third or fourth dress in the course of the day's proceedings. Japanese women typically change dresses multiple times on their weddings days. This is cumbersome but not particularly expensive, since they usually rent rather than buy their get-ups. That said, Satuki actually bought this frock. When I expressed my admiration, she offered to sell it to me, but I unfortunately don't have six gajillion dollars in savings.

Satuki attempts to feed her new husband some strawberry wedding cake with the aid of a fork and an anime blindfold.

Ryan and his co-workers perform a dance to Morning Musume's "Happy Summer Wedding." The girl in the front row with the red skirt and peach top is our friend Mika. They tall guy in the back with the white head-scarf is our friend Jeremy. You can't see it in this picture, but attached to the front of said head-scarf was a black-and-white picture of Satsuki's face with hearts on it.

And there, in the back row, a vision in a red skirt and pale peach head-scarf, is Mr. Ryan McConnell. He had a solo to sing midway through the song, but I failed to capture it on film because the drunk Japanese dudes behind me kept jostling me around. Man, those guys were tanked.

Jeremy strikes a coy pose while delivering his solo. I think everyone is bowing down before him because he bears the Satsuki hat? I dunno, it was a weird night!