After the ceremony there was some waiting and picture taking. Then we made our reception entrance. At most Japanese weddings, only close family comes to the ceremony and family, friends and co-workers come to the reception. So during the ceremony, the rest of the guests were arriving and signing in. We entered to one of the songs that we chose for the reception. We didn't get a choice in the structure much, but at least we got to choose the music. When walking in a wedding kimono it's important to take your time. So I had to keep telling my husband to walk slower. Luckily our manager/organizer lead the way and he just had to keep pace. There was a rather long introduction through which we had to stand for and then two or three speeches and a long toast. After that there were two more speeches, shorter this time, and then we made our first exit.

We went back to the dressing room to change clothes and redo my hair. I got to take the heavy fake hair off and peel out of the kimono. It took about twenty minutes to finish the make over and then another five to take pictures on the balcony.

It was rather bright and sunny, so I'm afraid there was a lot of squinting in the pictures. After that, we made our second entrance in to the reception, this time to some lively rock music. We proceeded to cut the cake and feed each other. I was fed with a teaspoon and I fed my husband with a serving spoon. We chose a plain round cake with lots of berries on top. I can't remember the order of everything else, but we watched a video my students made for us, my husband's high school kendo club did a funny dance, his band did a couple of songs (including one where my husband sang the song that he wanted to propose with; his got a friend to help translate a small part into English too), we did a candle relay, got flowers from my new nieces and I read a poem that I wrote for my parents. There was no time to relax. It was one thing after another. We didn't have time to eat anything either and everyone kept pouring alcohol for us; we were quite tipsy by the end. At the end, all of the guests made a long arch with their arms and we walked under them. My husband got caught three times by his friends and was bounced up in the air. I almost got kicked in the face one of the times. Whew!

After all the guests files out and we said goodbye to everyone, we went to the dressing room to eat and change clothes again. My hair was slightly altered and I put on a teal party dress. The food that we hadn't been able to eat was brought to us and we scarfed it down before going to the Second Party...