Wedding Invitation (the One I Didn't Get)
Sorry about the previous, overwrought post--though I do enjoy pounding those out, from time to time. I'm relieved to announce that the employment floodgates have opened and I'm now booked to my eyeballs in enough jobs that I should be unable to complain or loll about for a good four months. Hahhh.
Now that I'm feeling a little more magnanimous, I should expound upon the wedding invitation situation. No, I was not mistaken: I'm not invited. If your name ain't on the card...
According to my husband, it's a matter of economics. Having a wedding anywhere in the world is expensive. The more people you invite, the larger a reception hall you'll have to rent--and, to put it baldly, my husband's friends can't afford a bigger reception hall. And while each guest is expected to "help out" by toting along a wedding gift of around 30,000 yen, a couple might only pay 40,000 to 50,000 between them. Not such a good deal.
There's always a casual party following the reception, where even the wives are allowed to show their lowly faces, and where I've chatted with many good friends of the bride and groom who, without any apparent resentment, volunteered that they had not been invited to the wedding either. So I guess I have no right to get huffy. It's just that, before enduring my own typical, torturous Asian wedding years ago, where everyone and my father's client's underaged girlfriend were invited, I was subjected to months of unrelentingbrainwashing instruction regarding proper wedding etiquette. I guess some conditioned part of my brain was... triggered when I learned I hadn't been invited. Again.
I do wonder though whether in Japan, things aren't a little influenced by older traditions. In a shinto wedding, from what I understand, there'd be extremely limited guest seating--something like 10 people per bride and groom. And due to a very strict invitation hierarchy, guests would be made up of relatives for the most part. And maybe your boss. I've heard of times where a sibling might even get left out, for lack of space. Though I doubt that happens nowadays.
Now that I'm feeling a little more magnanimous, I should expound upon the wedding invitation situation. No, I was not mistaken: I'm not invited. If your name ain't on the card...
According to my husband, it's a matter of economics. Having a wedding anywhere in the world is expensive. The more people you invite, the larger a reception hall you'll have to rent--and, to put it baldly, my husband's friends can't afford a bigger reception hall. And while each guest is expected to "help out" by toting along a wedding gift of around 30,000 yen, a couple might only pay 40,000 to 50,000 between them. Not such a good deal.
There's always a casual party following the reception, where even the wives are allowed to show their lowly faces, and where I've chatted with many good friends of the bride and groom who, without any apparent resentment, volunteered that they had not been invited to the wedding either. So I guess I have no right to get huffy. It's just that, before enduring my own typical, torturous Asian wedding years ago, where everyone and my father's client's underaged girlfriend were invited, I was subjected to months of unrelenting
I do wonder though whether in Japan, things aren't a little influenced by older traditions. In a shinto wedding, from what I understand, there'd be extremely limited guest seating--something like 10 people per bride and groom. And due to a very strict invitation hierarchy, guests would be made up of relatives for the most part. And maybe your boss. I've heard of times where a sibling might even get left out, for lack of space. Though I doubt that happens nowadays.
0 Comments: