大きい脂肪質の沖縄の結婚式 (Their Big, Fat, Okinawan Wedding)
Well hot digity damn. Guess who got invited to their first (and probably last) Okinawan wedding? If you guessed me and MaryAnn, don't even think about patting yourself on the back because it was really obvious from the get-go. Just sayin...two students from my Friday adult class at Nishihara finally tied the knot this past weekend (rabu rabu), and after attending this lovely affair I'm ready to have an Okinawan style wedding of my own.
First rule about going to an Okinawan/Japanese wedding: don't be late. Second rule about going to an Okinawan wedding: no, really, don't be late. Normally if someone doesn't show up to an event on time, the show goes on without them. Not so with a wedding. Despite our best efforts, MaryAnn and I wound up being 20-25 minutes late. Little did we know that they were waiting for us to show up the whole time before everything began. Nobody said anything about it to us, but they were probably saying something to themselves...or to each other in hushed Japanese whispers. Whoopsie.
During dinner there was a raffle and prizes were handed out, the best one being a brand spanking new Nintendo Wii. Not surprisingly, damn near everyone at my table got called up to get something (clearly it was rigged in our favor). I wound up winning an instructional porn book while MaryAnn got this frog cup. Two pretty appropriate gifts if I do say so myself.
Another major selling point for Okinawan/Japanese weddings: the performances. Throughout the night there were video presentations (I'll have the video up from that soon...promise) and a performance from the bridge and groom themselves along with rest of their band. Even in Japan guys who play guitar get all the poontang.
You can watch this video on www.livejournal.com
Like seemingly every other party you attend in Japan, you have to pay a rather steep fee to get inside a wedding party. At 7,000 yen, this one was actually on the cheap side (it's not uncommon for mainland parties to be closer to $300 per person), but for all that we did get a five course meal, all the booze you could drink, and the aforementioned porn book and frog cup.