Preparing for a Japanese Wedding

Nahhhh~~~~.... not mine!!! =P
It's my friend's!! I'm preparing to go for her wedding tomorrow.
I didn't think I had to do that much for attending the event though. But I just realized I was quite wrong.

For Japanese tradition, only family members, relatives and a few close friends are invited to attend a wedding ceremony - probably within 50 people scale. (the number varies though, but usually around this.) And it's a common knowledge for people invited (and accepted to attend the ceremony) to prepare "Oshugi お祝儀" of around 30,000 yen (-"-) as a wedding gift. No other present is necessary. The ceremony and also wedding souveniors and other gift for guests usually costs extremely a lot to bride and groom. A lot of people said 30,000 yen is approximately the amount spent for each guest, so it makes sense to put that much in for the wedding gift. That was pretty much all that I was aware of for a long time.

Now that I'm actually invited to join the wedding, I learned that for that 30,000 yen, it has to be in newly printed banknotes that has no bending nor been used before. (meaning you have to go to the bank to exchange for this.)

Second, you have to prepare a special envelope for the greeting money (金封）. Regular postal envelope is prohibitted. I got this done quite some time ago. But I found out just this evening when I wanted to put the money in that there are certain rules to how to write on this envelope!


The envelope comes in 2 portions. The one inside that you put the money in. Then the outside cover. For the inside one, you have to write your name and address on the back and the amount of money on the front using a specified set of chinese characters (kanji).

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金壱萬圓也　（10,000　Yen）
金弐萬圓也　（２0,000　Yen）
金参萬圓也　（３0,000　Yen）
金伍萬圓也　（５0,000　Yen）
金壱拾萬圓也　（１00,000　Yen）
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On the outside cover (called "Shugi fukuro" 祝儀袋）, write your full name on the bottom portion using smaller font size than the character above. Here is written in the old style Kanji of　寿(Kotobuki) which means 'congratulations'

The more I searched about this, the more I found out about Japanese wedding customs. It's very interesting to learn that everything has meaning here. The envelope decoration is for one. The folding pattern, the element combination, the color used, etc. - very amazing. There are also customs for dresscode and set phrase to say during the ceremony. It's already a lot of work for people attending the party, but it must be so much more for the bride and groom. Let's see how it goes tomorrow. The next post will surely be about it. Get ready!