The Big day

Dec. 24th-25th
the legalities

Well the deed is done. Koji and I are now "legally" married though I suspect that in our hearts we have been for years. The only difference is a piece of paper on file at city office and excited reactions as we tell people. It's not the same as in Canada. There's no official, no vows, just some paperwork and that's it. It went something like this...

I spent Christmas Eve in Osaka getting the necessary affidavit and got into Masuda at 6:30 Christmas morning, tumbled off the night bus, walked the dog, got refreshed had a bite to eat and went about translating my birth certificate (another necessary document). Running around getting ink for the printer and batteries for the classroom and stuff, it hardly felt like a "wedding day".

But Koji did get into clean clothes and took an extended lunch break. I at least put on dress pants. I was truly fearing that he would show up in city hall in his work truck and wearing his grubby work clothes. In the end we drove there together in a car (though compared to MY car the work truck may have been cleaner!)

The Zenjos as our witnesses

We met with the Zenjos (Susan, an American, and Nao, Japanese) who were to be our witnesses. Now, in Japan, they could have filled out the necessary forms in their kitchen and left it at that, but they agreed to make it more fun by going to city hall with us and when Koji and I arrived we were greeted by little Zachary (their 4 year old son) dressed in a Christmas red shirt who excitedly said "Congratulations!!" and we all went into the right department with Zack creating quite the "oohing and aaaahhhhing" among the ladies.

He quickly whittled away time with comments about his new Pokeman Battle set that he got for Christmas.

We filled out the forms (one of the folks helping is my student at Puffin- guess she was surprised) and that was pretty much it.

We had lunch at a simple little restaurant and then the men went off to work and Susan, Zack and I did some shopping a had donuts.

Though this is not a fancy dressed up pic, I really like it. Koji is beaming. Maybe it was the kiss?

I did a little more shopping and was debating what to make for supper when I saw TURKEY LEGS!!! they were smoked but it was TURKEY!!! First time I've ever seen it here! So I bought some turkey and the fixings and tonight we had a Christmas/ wedding dîner a deux

We had a little sake to celebrate since by Japanese custom, the couple drinks sake together at the shrine. We planned to exchange rings and possibly vows on the 28th at the annual “Christmas party”.During the toast We will make the announcement, exchange and make the vows and on with the festivities and eating. Simple and sweet. That's just how we like it.

Dec. 28th
the party

On Dec 28th I had to work! But I had asked if I could get off early because I had a wedding to go to- my own! The boss announced it at the morning meeting and after all the fanfare and hoopla we eventually settled down to our jobs.

My task was to get the webpage uploaded for the New year and in the process of doing all this, all the female staff gathered around in a big circle and started a big “da-da da da-da-da-da…” (the wedding march) and they gave me a huge bouquet of flowers. Talk about crafty! They didn’t have much time to prepare this considering they never found out til that morning and the nearest flower shop is 25 mins away.

We met the Zenjos for lunch again and Nao helped translate the vows into Japanese. We had a quick rehearsal of how we’d break the news, let Zachary practice his ringbearer/ best man duties and...

That evening we had the party. As planned it remained a surprise. But the first surprise of the evening was on me. Chieko had said that Eriko’s mother was coming but when I walked in the first face I saw was Eriko! She was back from England for a short trip and it coincided with our wedding!!! What a present (though at this point they didn’t know that). All hands were there in formal wear, kiddies all dolled up and only the Zenjos knew what would happen.

I stood up and started the toast and luckily no-one noticed that my hands were almost violently shaking with nervousness whereas normally I just stand up, ham it up and get on with the proceedings.

I announced "Shall we have a toast? I'd like to make a toast so several exciting events over the last year. First Steve had a birthday yesterday (he went red!) and the MacTiers and Henneburys have had new additions to the family and here's to year of good health. Kanpai!"Then Travis stood up and said "I'd like to add something (Susan and I got nervous because she was supposed to stand up and add about us...) Renae and Koji (Susan & I shot each other nervous glances) opened their new school this year. Congratulations (we both breathed a sigh of relief)"

Then Susan stood up as planned and added "I'd like to add something, Renae and Koji took a big step and moved into and renovated a house this year. kanpai." she sat down as we'd planned and got up again "Oh wait, I almost forgot, and Renae and Koji got married! (you could hear the jaws as they hit the table) Congratulations. And now they are going to exchange rings and vows ... "By this time I was SOOOO nervous I don't know what she said, but Zackary, our ring bearer, came up with the rings and presented them to us and I got them ready while Koji got the vows from his pocket. I think we read them. I recall reading out something and had he accidentally taken out the phone bill, I’m sure I would have read it at that point and never noticed.

With this ring...

We exchanged rings while reading our vows and had a big "omedetou" from all and got on with the merriment. I wouldn't change a thing (except I'd have brought spare batteries for the camera- there were 5 cameras and only 2 worked!) and this was one of them.

Steve loves his new computer and quickly whipped up this pic of the happy couple

And this one...

The End (or rather “the beginning”)

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