Nijikai / Second Wedding Party
March 06, 2006
We had our 二次会 (ni ji kai) party last night. It’s a second wedding party generally for friends and for people who couldn’t come to the ceremony or who weren’t invited. We had slightly under 50 people come and celebrate with us. It was definitely the biggest party ‘we’ have ever thrown.
We took over Tiara restaurant and bar for a few hours and had a rather formal/rigid party. The night included:
- A candle lighting ceremony – the lady and I came out of the secret hiding place as the night formally began and lit candles placed on every table
- An opening speech by a very dear friend
- Cake cutting and champagne toast
- Two hour open bar – way too short although Thomas seemed to have no problems.
- A buffet dinner – the lady and I didn’t really have much time to eat so I snuck in as much food as I could in the very few minutes between greeting and thanking people for coming
- Prizes – a portable TV, an mp3 player, a webcam, a blender, an ICOCA card of an undisclosed amount of money, and a small bottle of icewine
- Enough well wishes and thank yous to last me a few years
I felt bad for my guests because I felt everything was so rushed. I wanted people to have plenty more time to enjoy the food and drinks but the restaurant basically swept us out. Everyone paid a fairly hefty bill to be there too (not to mention bags of presents and stuff; some of this shit’s good shit). I also felt bad because of the number of people there and because we were pretty much trapped to our table to greet people, I didn’t get to spend much time with people from my side. Such is the tradition of a nijikai party.
Afterwards about 30 of us headed over to a nearby bar for the, you guessed it, 三次会 (san ji kai) / Third Wedding Party. Thankfully this is not formalized and structured at all. We got drinks and this time I could spend time with my side more although my gaijin friends had mostly left.
We had guests come from Tokyo, Osaka, and if we’re being technical, Canada, America, and Australia (Osaka for these people really). I couldn’t believe some people took time to come join us last night and I’ll be forever grateful. The sad part was we both wanted to invite more people but had to trim our list down to the restaurant capacity. A few Komazawa friends sent flowers to the party and I wish they were there.
I mentioned this was the biggest party ‘we’ had ever thrown and the ‘we’ is wrapped in quotes because we had help. The lady’s two friends and my buddy Laura helped coordinate everything and act as MC, reception, waitress (for us), fashion adviser, forgotten-things-reminder-er, and more. Undying gratitude goes out to them. They took a lot of time out to help us plan and run the party.
Now that all wedding formalities are done, only the final things are left – things like sending out thank yous and all that fun stuff. I don’t have many pictures from this event so I’ll be knocking on your door if you had a camera there. Thomas wrote his account of it although he was a bit tipsy – he has a couple more pictures.
