Wedding Traditions of Imperial Japan
Heian robes, white dresses, carriage rides and sweet rice cakes. In the wedding of crown prince Yoshihito of Japan to his wife Kujō Sadako, we find the seeds of modernity.
An ASIABU Tea Talk Series lecture on the 1900 nuptials, “And the Bride Wore White: Japanese Crown Prince Yoshihito’s Modern Wedding as a National Spectacle,” was held Nov. 12 at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. It was presented by Alice Tseng, associate professor of Japanese Art and Architecture.
A dozen students attended to see the first instances of visual depictions of an Imperial Japanese wedding, as well as to sample the type of parties that would have been enjoyed for the occasion.
“The talk went on smoothly and the topic was very interesting,” said Yi-An Chen, president of ASIABU. “The audience enjoyed themselves, and the mochi, very much.”
Those mochi, sweet rice pastries, were featured on the official stamp commemorating the wedding, in a show of traditional Japanese modesty. But in other respects, such as a combination of Western and traditional wedding dress, the 1900 ceremony set the template for Japanese imperial weddings that is followed to this day.
It also marked the first time that a Japanese crown prince’s wedding was documented in woodblock prints. The prints were prepared in advance and offered a fanciful, but nonetheless very popular, image of the couple’s big day.
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