In a small Zen temple in Ōyamazaki, on the old road between Kyoto and Osaka, stands the oldest surviving tea room in Japan. It’s called Taian, and tradition says Sen no Rikyū built it in 1582. The room where tea is served measures two tatami mats. The guests’ door is a square opening so low that everyone who came through it had to bow, and a samurai had to leave his sword outside.
Rikyū spent his life refining the most considered form of hospitality Japan has, and near the end of it he built a room for almost nobody. The light through the paper screens, the single flower, the moment the water was poured: all of it was decided for the one or two people who would sit there. Nothing in that room was lesser because the gathering was small.
It’s the best description we know of how to elope in Japan. An elopement here is a day in which every decision is made for two people, and it deserves as much thought as a wedding for two hundred. Sometimes more, because there’s nobody else in the room to carry it.
If You Remember Nothing Else
An elopement is the two of you. Do the legal part at home and give Japan the ceremony. Choose the feeling before the location, and plan for a season rather than a single tree or a single clear morning. Assume the most beautiful places answer to someone, and give permission the time it needs. Decide what the ceremony has to mean before you decide what it looks like. And decide early how the people at home will be part of a day they won’t attend.
What We Mean When We Say Elopement
To us, an elopement is the two of you, and nobody else at the ceremony except the people making it happen. The moment family or friends join, it becomes an intimate wedding, which is a lovely thing in its own right and needs a different kind of planning: rooms to hold, a table to set, transport for a grandmother who’d rather not take on stone steps. We’re precise about the word because it gets stretched. We’ve been asked to plan an elopement for thirty people. In Japan, where old houses and garden venues are small, thirty guests is a proper wedding, and it deserves to be planned as one. If yours includes the people you love, start with this intimate wedding in Japan’s mountains instead.
For a long time the word meant running away. Very few of the couples who elope with us are running from anything. They’ve thought carefully about who should be in the room, and the answer turned out to be each other. We’ve written about that decision on its own, in what an elopement actually is. This guide is about how it works here.
It’s also worth separating an elopement from something Japan does very efficiently: the photo plan. A rented kimono, an hour at a temple, a photographer with three more couples booked that afternoon. If photographs in traditional dress are what you’re after, there’s an industry ready to provide them, and the kimono tradition is worth understanding before you choose (our Japanese wedding kimono guide goes into what each garment means). But a photo session is a portrait sitting. An elopement is a wedding. There are vows, a ceremony that means something to the two people inside it, a day built around them, and photographs and film made within that day rather than in place of it.
The Legal Part at Home, Everything Else in Japan
In Japan, a marriage becomes legal when it’s registered at a city or ward office. No ceremony carries legal weight on its own, whether it happens at a shrine, a temple or beside a lake. Registering here is possible, but it means documents from your embassy, translations into Japanese and a visit to the local office, which can take several days out of a trip that may only be a week long.
So most of the couples we work with marry legally at home and come to Japan for the ceremony that matters to them. We’d put it simply: do the legal part at home, and give Japan the rest. It frees the ceremony to be anything you want it to be, held anywhere you can be given permission to stand, and it leaves more of your time in Japan for the day itself and the days after it. A signature at a registry office is never the lesser event, and it doesn’t need a mountain.
If being legally married in Japan matters to you, it can be done. The requirements depend on your nationality, so decide early and confirm the current process with your embassy before anything else is booked.
Who Stands in Front of You
At a wedding, the guests do a great deal of quiet work. They witness. They react. They make a promise feel public. At an elopement that work falls to fewer people, so it’s worth deciding carefully who will be standing there when you say it.
Because the ceremony is symbolic, it can take whatever form you like. Some couples have a celebrant who speaks their language and leads them through words they’ve written together. Some want a formal Shinto ceremony, conducted by a priest at a shrine, which is a religious rite with its own order and its own meaning. If that’s drawing you, read our guide to Shinto weddings in Japan before deciding from photographs alone. And some couples want nobody leading anything: two people, their vows, and the place.
Japanese ritual can belong in an elopement when it means something to you, and only then. San-san-kudo, the sake shared at the heart of a Shinto wedding, three cups and three sips from each, is beautiful when you know why you’re doing it and strange when you don’t. Music works the same way. It can be one instrument chosen with real care, or nothing at all. One Tokyo couple sent their koto player songs by Beach House and Nina Simone, and the arrangements came back as a recording before the day (a Tokyo autumn elopement with their own songs on the koto). Others want nothing but each other’s words. One couple’s entire plan for their ceremony in Niigata was a single line: “We will just do our vows and rings.”
Choose the Feeling, Then the Ground
Most couples arrive with a place already in mind, usually one they’ve seen in photographs. We’d start a step earlier, with how you want the day to feel. When we sent one couple a dozen possibilities across Japan, from old ryokan to a bamboo farm, they ranked their top three and told us what the three had in common: each was “enveloped in nature, still, and secluded.” Then they added the line that decided it. “We’re drawn to being immersed in a setting and just existing in it.” They married in the mountains of Yamanashi, in a garden nobody else could walk into (a Nipponia elopement in the plum rain).
Japan has more kinds of ground for an elopement than most people imagine. These are the ones we return to, and what each of them gives a day.
Mt Fuji and the Five Lakes
Fuji keeps its own hours, and the best Fuji elopements are planned around that rather than in spite of it. In spring the mountain is most often clear first thing, so we start early. One couple began their vows with the summit hidden in cloud and finished them with Fuji standing clear above it (a spring elopement at Mt Fuji). In winter, cold dry air clears the distance, which is why another couple moved their date from April to December and had the mountain all day (a Mt Fuji winter elopement). And sometimes it never comes out at all. One November couple married in rain from morning to night with no mountain in sight, and the day was whole anyway (a Mt Fuji elopement in the rain). Further south, the tea fields above Shizuoka put the mountain on the horizon of something green and cultivated (a Mt Fuji tea field elopement).
Kyoto
Late autumn is Kyoto’s busiest season for good reason, and its famous gardens fill shoulder to shoulder. The quiet version of the city is usually behind a gate. For one couple on their first trip to Japan, that meant a private garden in the hills of north Kyoto that we can hire for intimate gatherings, a torii marked as an offering, and afterwards a slow walk through the city: the Shirakawa canal, a bar full of old Japanese sweets, the stepping stones across the Kamo River, and, because it’s Japan, a 7-Eleven (a Kyoto elopement at the peak of autumn). If colour matters, know that Kyoto is still mostly green in October. It peaks at the end of November and into early December.
Tokyo and Kawagoe
Tokyo offers something rarer than it sounds: anonymity. Thirty-seven million people are too busy to look at you. An elopement here can begin in a garden that feels a century away from the city, then walk straight back into it. One couple married in the garden of a pre-war house we open to couples quietly, then spent the evening in Shinjuku. An hour northwest, the old merchant town of Kawagoe gave another couple a boat on the Shingashi River, poled slowly under half a kilometre of cherry trees, before vows in a garden and Shibuya Crossing at blue hour (a Kawagoe cherry blossom elopement).
Ryokan and Onsen
A ryokan elopement doesn’t end when the ceremony does. There’s dinner served privately, an onsen after dark, a room that becomes yours for a couple of days rather than a few hours. Jinya, an old inn at Tsurumaki Onsen at the foot of the Tanzawa mountains, has hosted several of our elopements: one in full spring rain with a koto player and paper cranes the couple had folded themselves (a rainy day elopement at Jinya), another in a detached suite the day before a typhoon made landfall (a summer elopement at Jinya), another under maples on the last day of November (an autumn elopement at a ryokan).
Mountain Villages and Private Villas
Some of the most considered elopements happen in places that host only one party at a time. NIPPONIA in Kosuge is a hotel spread through a village in the mountains of Yamanashi, where vows can happen in the private garden of a suite. In the mountains of Nara, a villa we return to gives itself to one couple a day, with a mountain range borrowed as the backdrop. The Japanese garden term is shakkei, borrowed scenery (a Murou Art Forest elopement). One couple arrived there by helicopter from Kyoto (a helicopter elopement in Japan), and another began with a blessing at a waterfall in hiking jackets (a Nara wedding for two).
Forests, Gardens and Rice Country
Our bamboo forest in Tochigi lets a couple speak their vows after dark beneath an illuminated arch of bamboo, which one couple did in the rain (a bamboo forest at night). And sometimes the right place is one nobody had listed. A couple who let go of cherry blossom season found the whole country open to them, and married in late May in a private garden in Niigata that doesn’t open its gate to the public, with the rice paddies newly planted around it (a Niigata elopement).
The Season You’ll Actually Get
Every season in Japan works for an elopement, and every one of them arrives on its own terms. Blossom moves north through spring. Autumn colour moves down from the mountains. Across most of Japan, June and early July bring tsuyu, the early summer rains, written with the characters for plum and rain because they fall as the plums ripen. Typhoons are most likely in August and September. Winter is cold, dry and clear, and it gives Mt Fuji its most reliable weeks. Our Japan wedding planning timeline has the dates.
What an elopement has, and a wedding usually doesn’t, is room to move. There are no guests booked on flights around one particular afternoon. When the mountain matters, a morning can be held in reserve. When rain is likely, the covered places are chosen as carefully as the open ones, so the day you get is never a lesser version of the one you planned. We’d never promise anyone sunshine in Japan. We’d promise a day worth having either way, and some of the couples who married in the steadiest rain we’ve seen will tell you they wouldn’t change it.
Beautiful Places Answer to Someone
Some of the most beautiful ground in Japan isn’t a venue at all. A lakeshore, a city park, a shrine hillside, an art park: each belongs to somebody, and each has its own terms. At one sculpture park in Nara, the city requires a permit for professional photography and the park keeps its own seasons and closing days. A shrine will bless a couple on the shrine’s terms, because a shrine is a place of worship first. Asking properly takes time, and it’s part of the work we do long before anyone gets dressed.
Places also change. A gate above Lake Kawaguchiko where one of our couples married in the quiet months after Japan reopened is crowded from morning until evening now. It was a window, and it has closed. Japan’s best-known places are busier than they have ever been, so quiet has to be found in other ways. Sometimes it’s the hour: a lakeshore at sunrise belongs to almost nobody. Sometimes it’s the weather. On that rainy November day at Fuji, the rain kept every other visitor away from the shrine. And very often it’s a relationship. A private garden in Kyoto, a pre-war house in Tokyo, a villa in Nara and a bamboo forest in Tochigi are open to our couples because of years spent earning the trust of the people who look after them. We keep most of them unnamed, which is part of why they’re still quiet.
The Shape of the Day
An elopement day is paced to the light rather than the clock. Getting ready matters more than people expect, because the anticipation is part of it. The ceremony itself is often short. What follows it is where the day becomes yours.
Leave room after the vows. We keep the first minutes after a ceremony free on purpose. It’s the first time you’ll stand together married with nothing to do, and it passes quickly enough without anyone filling it. Then let the day move. Several of our couples have gone from a quiet garden straight into a city, walking the streets in the clothes they married in. Others open a sake cask for two. Kagami biraki means “opening the mirror”, and at an elopement it’s one mallet held by both people. Many stay the night somewhere the day can continue, with dinner and an onsen and nowhere to be in the morning.
Something can come home with you, too. One couple who married in Nara each made half of a moon vase at a pottery studio nearby. It was fired after they left and sent home to them, a single object made by two people, which is not a bad description of a marriage.
The People Who Weren’t There
Choosing to elope is a decision about who is in the room. It isn’t a decision about who matters, and most couples spend some time working out how the people at home will be part of it.
Some hold a send-off before they leave, so family and friends have their own moment first. Some have their families watching live from home on a screen. Others want a film that keeps both sets of vows, so the people at home hear the words in your own voices as well as seeing the photographs. Some keep their vows film entirely private, which is just as valid. Whatever you choose, decide it early. It changes how the day is photographed and filmed, and in our work the planning and the imagery are designed together from the first conversation, so that what reaches home feels like the day itself.
How Far Ahead to Plan an Elopement
Less far than a wedding, because there are no flights to coordinate and no rooms to hold for anyone else. If your dates and your idea of the place have some give in them, an elopement can come together in a matter of months, and often does.
The exception is scarcity. The right week and the right ground are just as scarce for two people as they are for eighty. If your elopement has to be peak cherry blossom in one particular place, or the last week of autumn colour in Kyoto, plan it the way you’d plan a wedding, because the places that host one celebration a day are spoken for first. Our Japan wedding planning timeline explains how far ahead each kind of day needs, and why.
Quick Answers About Eloping in Japan
How do you elope in Japan?
Most international couples marry legally at home, then hold a symbolic ceremony in Japan, which can take place almost anywhere permission can be arranged: a shrine, a garden, a ryokan, a mountainside or a lakeshore. The planning covers the place, the season, permissions, the ceremony itself, getting ready, transport, a weather plan and the hours after the vows.
Can foreigners legally get married in Japan?
Yes. A marriage becomes legal in Japan when it’s registered at a city or ward office, which requires documents from your embassy and translations into Japanese. Requirements vary by nationality, so confirm them early. Many couples choose to marry legally at home instead.
What’s the difference between an elopement and an intimate wedding?
For us, an elopement is the two of you alone. Once family or friends attend the ceremony, it’s an intimate wedding, which changes the planning: rooms, transport, meals and the needs of every guest.
Where is the best place to elope in Japan?
There’s no single answer, and anyone who gives you one hasn’t asked enough questions. Mt Fuji and the Fuji Five Lakes, Kyoto, Tokyo, ryokan towns like Hakone, forests, mountain villages and the coast all offer different days. Start with how you want the day to feel, then choose the ground.
When is the best time of year to elope in Japan?
Spring brings blossom, which reaches Tokyo and Kyoto around the end of March and moves north through April. Autumn colour moves the other way, from the mountains down, and peaks in Kyoto from late November into early December. Winter has the clearest air and the most reliable views of Mt Fuji. Early summer brings the rainy season around Tokyo, and typhoons are most likely in August and September. Every season works with the right place and the right plan.
How much does it cost to elope in Japan?
It depends on the place, the season and how much of the day is designed. Our guide to what a wedding in Japan costs includes elopements.
Do we need a planner to elope in Japan?
You need somebody who understands both the day you want and the country it has to happen in: permissions, seasons, transport, language, and a weather plan that’s as good as the original. When the people standing beside you are the only people there, that understanding matters more, not less. You can see how we plan elopements at Destination Wedding Japan.
Room for Two
Taian is still there, across the road from a small train station, in a temple garden you could walk past without noticing. You can’t simply turn up to see it. You write to the temple about a month ahead and wait for a reply. People do, from all over the world, to stand outside a room of two tatami mats, because of the care that was taken inside it four centuries ago.
That door was made small on purpose. Whoever you were in the world, you bowed to come in, and whatever you carried stayed outside. Then somebody who had thought about nothing else made tea for you.
An elopement in Japan can be that kind of room. The guest list, the seating plan and the expectations that gather around a wedding all stay on the other side of the door. What’s left is two people, one place, and a day given the kind of attention Japan has long reserved for its smallest gatherings.
