One of Peter's teachers, Hasegawa sensei, decided to have a traditional Japanese wedding. This meant several processional marches in various places. We attended the march she took up to the Tsuruoka shrine, in the middle of town. It was an interesting view of traditional Japanese clothes.

Here is when they first arrived and organized the procession.

This is the very front of the wedding procession.

Here are the bride and groom. The bride wore a traditional Japanese wig along with a wedding kimono and headdress. The wig and headdress were very heavy. A nice kimono easily costs several thousand dollars.

There was also an attendent holding a red umbrella for the bride and groom. (And yes, this was during the end of hanami so there were food stalls at the park including an octopus stall...it's a popular treat in Japan).

The end of the entourage was various people mostly in kimono related to the bride or groom.

Here the wedding party is entering the shrine area. There are also two high school girls standing there as well. They are wearing the standard uniform seen on high school students in Japan, with slight variations for each high school. Their skirts are supposed to be knee length but they like to hitch up their skirts by rolling them at the waist.

Now the wedding party is entering the small shrine itself.

At this point in time, Peter and I went home. We were told later it would have been OK for us to go in as well and listen, but we weren't really dressed for the occasion.