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    The couple at their wedding ceremony, small in a moss, stone and pine garden in autumn at NIPPONIA Kosuge, Yamanashi

    No. 399 4 min read

    Sailor Moon Came Too: A Wedding in a Japanese Mountain Village

    A Sailor Moon wedding at NIPPONIA Kosuge in autumn 2025: a couple from the United States, a small group of the people closest to them, and a ceremony in the garden of a silk farmer's house a century and a half old.

    Originally published 11 February 2026. Updated October 2026.

    They flew in from the United States with a small group of the people closest to them, and the bride brought Sailor Moon. It came in the details she wore, chosen with the same care as the dress. In a mountain village at the top of Tokyo’s river, in a house built by silk farmers a century and a half ago, it looked entirely at home.

    That’s because Sailor Moon is as Japanese as the house. Naoko Takeuchi’s story of a schoolgirl and the friends who save the world with her began in a Japanese girls’ manga magazine in the early 1990s, and within a few years it was on television around the world.

    For a great many people who grew up far from Japan, the first Japan they ever loved was on a screen.

    So this wasn’t a theme laid over a wedding. It was a piece of Japan coming back to Japan, worn by someone who had loved it for most of her life.

    Mist lying in a forested valley in the mountains of Kosuge, Yamanashi, on the morning of a wedding in a Japanese village

    A Village That Became a Hotel

    NIPPONIA Kosuge is a hotel spread through a village. Kosuge sits in the far north-east of Yamanashi, about two hours from Tokyo by car: a little over six hundred people, and forest over almost all of the land. Since 2019 its old houses have been restored as rooms, and the people who live there look after the guests. At the centre is the Ōya, a house built about a hundred and fifty years ago by a family who made their living from silk.

    For a small wedding, that changes the shape of the days. Guests don’t arrive at a venue and leave again. They move into a village for a while. They walk between the houses, find the little red torii in the bamboo and cedar above the lanes, and sleep under beams older than anything most of them had ever stayed in.

    From above, the tiled roof of an old house at NIPPONIA Kosuge, the wedding dress hanging at its window

    The Morning in the Old Houses

    The morning happened in the village’s old houses, among their closest friends, and the noise carried. An old Japanese house is good at this. It was built for a family and everyone who came through its door.

    In black and white, the groom dressing beside wooden-framed windows in an old house at NIPPONIA Kosuge
    The bride in a white robe putting in an earring, a white flower in her hair, her wedding dress hanging beside her
    In black and white, the bride and her friends laughing beside the hanging wedding dress in an old house

    Somewhere in that morning the last of the Sailor Moon details went on: the headdress, and the gold chains her friends lifted over her head and fastened. Nobody treated it as a costume. It was simply part of what she was wearing to marry him.

    Her friends lift a draped gold chain piece over the bride, a Sailor Moon detail for her wedding in Japan
    Friends fasten the gold chains across the bride’s shoulders before her Sailor Moon wedding in a Japanese village
    The groom and three groomsmen sit in a row on the raised wooden floor of an old house, drinks in hand
    The couple beside a small red torii in a bamboo and cedar wood above the village of Kosuge
    The bride alone in front of the small red torii in the woods above the village, her skirt turning

    Vows in the Garden

    They married in the garden below the house, among moss and stone and old pines, at the end of October, when the hills above the village were just beginning to turn. White Japanese anemones were still flowering beside the paths. Their people stood close, which is one of the real advantages of a small wedding: nothing happens at a distance, and nobody watches from the back.

    The wedding ceremony in the Japanese garden at NIPPONIA Kosuge, guests seen from behind among moss and pines

    The vows were theirs, and they stay theirs.

    The couple soft behind white Japanese anemones and a floral arch in the garden after their ceremony
    The bride among autumn leaves and pampas grass in the garden of the old house, bouquet in hand
    In black and white, the bride’s skirt swirling in a village lane beside an old building in Kosuge
    In black and white, the groom lifted onto a friend’s shoulders, groomsmen laughing around him
    In black and white, guests laughing and drinking in an old house during the wedding celebration

    Dusk, and a Long Table

    At dusk, the two of them walked out among the persimmon trees. In late autumn the fruit hangs orange in village gardens across Yamanashi, and in parts of the prefecture much of it is peeled and hung under the eaves to dry for the winter. It’s one of the quiet signs of the season here.

    The couple holding each other at dusk among persimmon trees in a village garden in Yamanashi

    Dinner was a long table, and the toasts ran long. The chef at NIPPONIA once ran his own Michelin-starred restaurant, and left that pace behind for a kitchen in the mountains, where the ingredients come from the village and the valleys around it. In late October that means mountain food: river fish and wasabi from the valley.

    In black and white, the groom laughing at the long dinner table
    In black and white, a toast across the long table at a Sailor Moon wedding in a Japanese mountain village

    She grew up with one Japan, on a screen on the other side of the world. She married in another, in a silk farmer’s house at the top of Tokyo’s river. The two got on perfectly well.

    What to Know About NIPPONIA Kosuge

    • Where it is. Kosuge, in the far north-east of Yamanashi, bordering Tokyo’s Okutama, about two hours from central Tokyo by car.
    • What it is. A hotel spread through the village since 2019: rooms in restored old houses, hosted by the people who live there. The main house, the Ōya, was built about a hundred and fifty years ago by a silk-farming family.
    • The village. A little over six hundred people, with forest over about 95 percent of the land, part of it inside Chichibu Tama Kai National Park.
    • The river. Kosuge lies in the headwaters of the Tama River, which runs on through Tokyo to the bay.
    • In autumn. Colour comes into the hills from mid-October and is at its best in November, and persimmons ripen in the village gardens.

    Their Film

    Their film shows what the photographs can only suggest: the countryside around the village, the hills and the light of Yamanashi in autumn, and how naturally a celebration can take in everything that matters to the two people at the centre of it.

    Tracey Taylor

    Photographer, filmmaker and co-founder of 37 Frames, the Tokyo studio she runs with Dee Green. Tracey leads the studio's photography and film at weddings across Japan and around the world. She judges international photography competitions and has taught for Nikon. The studio's weddings have appeared in Vogue and The New York Times.

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