Japanese Wedding

Last weekend we went to a friend's wedding party. We were not invited to the wedding or wedding reception, but this was sort of like a gathering of friends. In Japanese it is called a 二次会、which is like a "second" party. Anyway, even though these are invitation only parties, guests have to pay for themselves, usually a set amount decided upon by the couple. Can you believe that? It's typical in Japan to have these types of parties. . . or so I'm told. I still wasn't used to the fact that we are invited guests, but were expected to pay!!! (since guests have to pay, they are not expected to bring a gift.)

Guess how much it cost to attend the party? Wait, before you guess, let me describe the location and the food, then you can guess. The couple rented a hall in a trendy part of Tokyo called Aoyama. There were probably about 70 people there, standing room only. . . unless you were lucky enough to get there early and sit at one of the 4 tables! The food was just okay. There were some finger foods, followed by salad, and then some pasta. This was all buffet style. . . but I think there wasn't enough food to go around. And of course there were just small serving plates, so you couldn't exactly pile it on! There was an all you can drink bar as well with bear, wine, juice, tea, etc. For dessert there was gelato, tiramisu, as well as wedding cake, but we didn't get a piece of the wedding cake, since it was so small, and it didn't get passed around to us. But, the gelato and tiramisu was good. Oh, and there were some raffle prizes, such as a mp3 player, 2 tickets to Disneyland, and the grand prize was a Nintendo DS. I think the cost of the prizes are included in the "admission" price of the party. So, what's your guess?

It cost us a WHOPPING $180 to attend the party! The cost was $90 per person!!! Can you believe that? Oh, but I should mention, that the invitation did say that if you are can show a student ID, then you can get a $5 discount! Whoopie! Like what student can afford to pay $85 for "dinner?" I was expecting to have a sit-down steak dinner or something!!! This was far from close to that!!! I've talked to other people about these types of parties, and they say that they usually cost around $50 per person. So, the $90 that we paid was too much! It must have been the location that was expensive!

Out of the 70 or so guests that were there, we only knew 1 other person, other than the couple. So, the 3 of us hung out the whole time. We were tired of standing for 2 hours, and just snacking on small snacks, that we decided to leave a bit early (after greeting the new couple of course) and we went out for ramen. I would have never expected to pay $90 and still end up being hungry at the end of the night!!! Go figure!