The couples who write to us ask roughly the same questions, just in a different order. Can we plan this from overseas? Is a shrine wedding possible for us? Will the kitchen cope with my sister’s allergy? What happens if it rains? This wedding in Japan FAQ is our answer to all of them in one place, written by the people who plan, photograph and film these weddings, and who live here.
Each answer is short. Where a question deserves more, it links to the guide where we’ve gone into it properly. If you’d rather read the bigger picture first, start with our guide to getting married in Japan, or the ten things couples wish they knew before planning a wedding in Japan.
Wedding in Japan FAQ: Planning From Abroad
Can we plan a wedding in Japan without visiting first?
Yes, and most of our couples do. We know the venues we recommend from years of working in them, so we can walk you through a place on a video call, tell you how it feels at the hour you’d marry, and say plainly when it isn’t right for you. Some couples like to visit once, and that’s lovely if it matters to you. Others see their venue for the first time the week of the wedding. One couple booked with us while Japan’s borders were still closed and married two weeks after it reopened.
How far ahead should we start planning?
For a wedding with guests, secure your date up to eighteen months ahead and plan across the twelve months before it, because most venues in Japan only open their calendars about a year out. Peak blossom and peak autumn colour go first. Elopements can come together faster. Our Japan wedding planning timeline shows what gets decided when.
We know nothing about Japanese weddings. Is that a problem?
Not at all. Most of our couples arrive knowing how they want the day to feel and very little about the customs, which is exactly the right way round. A wedding in Japan doesn’t have to be a Japanese wedding. You borrow the traditions that mean something to you and leave the rest.
Do we need a wedding planner in Japan?
You need someone who understands both the wedding you want and the system it has to happen in: venue contracts, outside-vendor rules, permissions, transport, kitchens, and the conversations that happen in Japanese. When international guests are involved, that understanding stops being a luxury. We’ve written more about what to look for in a wedding planner in Japan.
What’s the difference between a venue coordinator and an independent planner?
A venue coordinator works for the venue. Many are excellent, and they know their building’s day inside out, but their job is to run that venue’s wedding well. An independent planner works for you, across every part of the celebration: which venue suits you in the first place, the vendors, the guests, the permissions, the days around the wedding and the days when something changes.
Most conversations will be in Japanese. How does that work?
The conversations that decide a wedding here, with venues, shrines, kitchens, drivers and local authorities, usually happen in Japanese. Handling them is a large part of what a planner in Japan does. You get the decisions explained clearly in English, and nobody you love has to navigate a phone call in a language they don’t speak.
Ceremonies and the Legal Side
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 means documents from your embassy and translations into Japanese. No ceremony, at a shrine or anywhere else, is legally binding on its own. Most of our couples marry legally at home and come to Japan for the celebration that means something to them.
Can foreigners have a Shinto wedding?
Yes, at many shrines. The shrine sets the terms: its order of rites, its music, its guest numbers and its rules on cameras. The ceremony is in Japanese and led by the priests, and a shrine will expect you to understand what you’re taking part in. Our guide to Shinto weddings in Japan explains the rite and the alternatives.
Is a temple or Buddhist wedding possible?
Yes. Temple weddings are less common than shrine weddings in Japan, but they exist, and they suit couples who feel drawn to a temple’s setting or tradition. The same principle applies: understand the rite before choosing it for its beauty.
Can a friend marry us?
Yes. Because the legal part happens at home, the ceremony in Japan can take whatever form you like, and many of our couples are married by a close friend or someone from their family. Others choose a celebrant, a Shinto priest, or simply their own vows.
Can we include Japanese traditions without it feeling like a costume?
Yes, if you choose them for what they mean rather than how they photograph. A shared sake ceremony, opening a sake cask with the people you love, a moment of tea, a blessing at a shrine: any of them can belong in your day. What matters is that someone explains them, so your guests take part instead of watching.
Can we have an LGBTQ wedding in Japan?
Yes. We plan for couples, full stop. As for every couple, the legal side is handled at home and the celebration happens here. Here’s one of those weddings, two brides at Jinya in blossom season.
Venues and Places
What kinds of wedding venues are there in Japan?
Hotels and wedding halls built for Japanese weddings, chapels, shrines and temples, ryokan, historic houses and private gardens, villas, and open landscapes that need permission rather than a booking. Each runs a wedding differently, and the right one depends on who you’re bringing. Our guide to wedding venues in Japan goes through the questions that decide it.
How is a wedding in Japan different from a wedding at home?
Mostly in who runs it. Many Japanese venues are built to host a complete wedding with their own team, menu and suppliers, often several weddings a day. That works beautifully for a Japanese wedding and can feel rigid for anything else: outside suppliers may be restricted, timings are fixed, and decisions happen in Japanese. The weddings we plan usually happen at places that host one celebration a day, where the day is built around you rather than a package.
Can we take over a whole ryokan?
Often, yes. Many inns can be given whole to one celebration for a night or two, so the garden, the halls and the baths belong to your guests alone. It costs more than a private dinner in a shared inn. What it buys is a weekend without strangers in the corridors.
Can we see venues before we decide?
Yes. Once you’ve booked planning with us and your planning period has begun, we can arrange visits to the venues we’re considering for your celebration. One couple came back to Japan to see venues with us, and found the one they’d been hoping for at Asaba Ryokan in Shuzenji. If you can’t make the trip, we walk you through them on video and tell you what the photographs won’t: the noise, the light at the hour you’d marry, the walk from the car, the rain plan. When you do visit, the questions that matter most are less about décor and more about whether the place can really host the day you want.
Can we marry outdoors, at Mt Fuji or in a park?
Often, with permission and a good plan. Japan’s most beautiful ground usually belongs to someone, whether a shrine, a city or a national park, and permission is measured in months. Parks in blossom belong to everyone, so a private cherry blossom wedding needs a private venue. Mt Fuji keeps its own hours, so a Fuji wedding needs a place that’s still wonderful when the mountain hides. Our elopement guide covers how permission and quiet are found.
Can we do a pre-wedding or photo-only shoot in Japan?
Yes. Some couples come for portraits before a wedding at home, others during their honeymoon. The same rules apply as for a wedding: the best places need permission, the best light has a time, and the season matters more than the date. Here’s a pre-wedding shoot at Mt Fuji and in Tokyo.
Can we have a wedding in Okinawa or Hokkaido?
Yes. We plan across Japan, from the islands of Okinawa to the snow country of Nagano and beyond. The further a wedding is from Tokyo or Kyoto, the earlier we like to start, because travel, accommodation and local teams all need more lead time.
Can we bring our own photographer, florist or other vendors?
It depends on the venue. Some Japanese venues restrict outside suppliers or charge a fee for bringing them in, known as mochikomi. Others are open. If a particular photographer, filmmaker or florist matters to you, settle it before you sign the venue contract, not after.
For weddings planned by 37 Frames, our planning and photography teams work together from the beginning. We don’t work alongside outside photography or film teams; film from our Creative Team is an optional addition.
Seasons and Dates
When is the best time of year for a wedding in Japan?
There’s no single best season, only the one that suits your day. Spring brings blossom, autumn brings colour, winter brings clear air and Mt Fuji at its most reliable, and summer belongs to the mountains and the north. Early summer brings the rainy season around Tokyo, and typhoons are most likely in August and September. Our guide to the best time of year for a wedding in Japan goes season by season.
Can you guarantee cherry blossom or a view of Mt Fuji?
No one can, and anyone who does is guessing. Blossom isn’t a date and Fuji isn’t an appointment. What we can do is plan for a season rather than a single tree, choose places that are beautiful either way, and hold a reserve morning when the mountain really matters.
Does the wedding have to be on a weekend?
No. Many of our weddings run midweek, because guests who have flown in from the other side of the world are on holiday anyway. Midweek dates are also easier to secure at the places that host one celebration a day.
Do lucky and unlucky days matter in Japan?
To some Japanese families, very much. Many Japanese calendars mark a six-day cycle in which Taian is the luckiest day for a wedding and Butsumetsu the least lucky. For most international couples it decides nothing, and an unlucky date can even be easier to book. We’ve published the full Taian calendar for 2027.
Guests
How many days should a destination wedding in Japan be?
Two or three days suits most weddings with guests travelling from abroad: a welcome dinner, the wedding, and a slower day after. The days around the wedding are where guests from different parts of your life become one group. Our guide to planning a wedding weekend in Japan explains how we shape them.
How do you look after guests who’ve never been to Japan?
By removing the small uncertainties before they arrive: which city to fly into, where to stay, how to get there with luggage, what happens at a ryokan, what to wear for the season. Guests get clear information early, transport where it’s needed, and a welcome evening so the wedding isn’t the first time everyone meets.
Do guests need to give money as a gift?
Only at a Japanese couple’s wedding, where goshugi, a cash gift in a special envelope, is a real obligation. At a destination wedding for friends from overseas, guests simply follow the couple’s wishes on gifts. Our guide for guests attending a wedding in Japan covers etiquette for both.
What should guests wear?
Whatever the couple’s dress code says. At a Japanese couple’s wedding, custom adds a few rules, such as avoiding white and choosing a white or silver tie rather than black. Everyone should plan for shoes coming off, gravel and stone underfoot, and the real season rather than the photographs.
Our guests don’t speak Japanese. Will they be all right?
Yes. Japan is an easy country to be a guest in, and the parts that do need Japanese are the parts a planner handles.
Food, Dress and the Day
What food is served at a wedding in Japan?
It depends on the venue. Ryokan serve kaiseki, a seasonal sequence of small courses built around where you are. Hotels and restaurants often serve French or Italian menus with Japanese ingredients. A buyout can mix both. Our guide to Japanese wedding food explains what to expect.
Can Japanese kitchens handle dietary requirements?
Yes, with notice and the right conversations. Japanese cooking hides its ingredients well: dashi, the stock under so much of it, is often made with fish, and soy sauce usually contains wheat. Tell us early about allergies, coeliac disease, vegetarian, vegan or halal guests, because the answer can change which venue is right.
Can I wear a kimono for my wedding?
Yes. Couples from abroad wear the white shiromuku and the coloured uchikake for ceremonies and around them. It takes a trained dresser and several hours, and it’s worth understanding what each garment means. Our Japanese wedding kimono guide goes garment by garment.
Can we bring our own wedding dress and hair and makeup team?
Most of our couples bring their own dress or suit, and we work with hair and makeup artists who are used to international brides. If you’d like to bring your own artist, ask early, because some venues have rules about outside teams.
How late can the party go?
That depends on the venue more than anything else. Some can host dancing late into the night. Others have neighbours, volume limits or a fixed end to dinner. If you imagine a DJ at midnight, make it a venue question before booking, not a surprise afterwards.
Cost and Contracts
How much does a wedding in Japan cost?
It depends far more on your guest count, your venue and how many days you celebrate than on Japan itself. Our guide to what a wedding in Japan costs breaks it down, including elopements.
How do venue payments usually work in Japan?
Japanese venues typically take a deposit when you sign and expect the balance before the wedding day rather than after, usually by bank transfer. Terms vary from venue to venue, including cancellation and date-change policies, so read them before signing. We go through every contract with our couples first.
Is a planner worth the cost?
A planner’s fee is a real cost, and it should buy something real: judgement about what’s right for you, access to places that host one celebration a day, a weather plan as good as the original, and the hundreds of small decisions you’ll never have to make. The best measure is the day itself, and how little of the work you felt.
The Question Behind the Questions
Most of these questions are really one question asked in different ways: will it be all right? Will our people be looked after? Will the place be as good as we hoped? Will we be able to stop worrying and actually be there?
That’s the question we plan around. Structure is what makes the answer yes, and it’s why the couples who marry here tend to remember the day rather than the logistics.
