Tokyo (Saturday - Wedding)

The wedding took place at the International House of Japan, where behind the building was a garden,


complete with waterfall.


Obviously, lots of the guests took advantage of the setting to take pictures.


The reception was in a room adjacent to the garden and the dessert buffet (yes, dessert buffet was served outside).


Here's me in my cute little outfit,


under the cherry blossom tree (the other side of which is great for wedding photos),

and you have to have one of these pictures.


The traditional Japanese ceremony was at 11am and the reception ran from noon to 3pm. Here are Takemi and Kumiko in ceremony outfits. They look great!


Now, I don't know if anyone is going to believe this story but it's absolutely true. The cherry blossoms only bloom for one beautiful week and from the time I left the airport to 3pm the day of the wedding, I'd seen cherry blossom trees that hadn't yet bloomed, that had just bloomed, and that were in full bloom. But never in this entire time did I see petals falling from the tree or fallen petals on the ground (and I was definitely looking for this).

At the end the wedding reception, the groom gives a short speech and the couple leaves (they don't go too far, there's a receiving line outside). As they're walking out of the room and everyone is watching them, I turned and looked outside at the garden and saw the first scattered petals flying past the window. Amazing. Congratulations to the happy couple. The wedding was over.