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Real Weddings & Elopements 3 min read

One Hour to Themselves: Shibuya Pre-Wedding Photos Before the Party

The couple walk past a giant billboard face in Shibuya, its eyes wider than they are tall, in Shibuya pre-wedding photos taken two nights before their wedding.

Sixty-six people were waiting for them in a bar in Shibuya, and we were somewhere else. Two nights before their wedding at Jinya, they had one hour in Tokyo before they walked through that door and the week changed scale. Until then, it was still just the two of them. Their Shibuya pre-wedding photos had always been planned for the walk to the welcome party. Nobody had planned the weather.

Rain had been falling on Tokyo for nearly three weeks. It would go on for thirty-seven days in a row, the longest run the city has ever recorded, and it would pour through their wedding at Jinya two days later. That Monday afternoon, it stopped, and the sun came out. So we walked.

The couple walk hand in hand across Shibuya Crossing among the afternoon crowds, Shibuya pre-wedding photos on the one dry afternoon in weeks.

Before Everyone Else

Every destination wedding reaches a point where it stops belonging only to the couple. Guests land, families arrive, someone needs to know which train to take, and the two people at the centre of it all become hosts. For these two, that moment was waiting at the end of an hour in Shibuya. Most of their guests had flown in from Australia and America, and by evening almost everyone would be together for the first time. But not yet. There was no bridal party with us, no family, nobody with a question about the days ahead, just the two of them moving through a city they were about to share with everyone else. Part of planning a week like this is protecting an hour like that.

The groom in sunglasses and a black jacket walks arm in arm with the bride in a pale slip dress across the Shibuya scramble crossing.
The bride leans into the groom as people stream past them on Shibuya Crossing, billboards bright behind.

Shibuya Pre-Wedding Photos on the One Dry Afternoon

We started at the crossing, where the crowds gather at the edges and pour into the intersection every time the lights change. After weeks of grey, the afternoon was bright.

Close on their joined hands as the couple cross the white stripes of Shibuya Crossing, her ruffled hem lifting in the breeze.
The couple walk through the crowd beneath the bright billboards and signs of Shibuya.
In black and white, the couple cross Shibuya Crossing side by side among hundreds of people.
Seen from behind, the couple walk away across the crossing toward the station buildings, a stream of people around them.
  • In black and white, the groom in sunglasses walks beside the bride through the Shibuya crowd, signs blurred behind them.
  • The couple walk arm in arm across the crossing in front of the tall glass buildings of Shibuya.
  • A wide view of Shibuya Crossing with the couple small in the middle of the crowd, billboards stacked on every building.
  • Framed past a passer-by in a red shirt, the couple walk close together through the Shibuya crowd.
  • The groom laughs and pulls the bride close in the middle of the crossing as people pass on every side.
  • The bride rests her head toward the groom as they walk through the busy crossing in the afternoon light.
  • In black and white, the couple walk across the stripes of the crossing, the crowd thinning behind them.
  • The couple pass through a dense crowd on the crossing, the station-front buildings and shop signs behind them.
  • In black and white, the couple stand facing each other on the empty stripes between waves of people.
  • A passer-by's parasol frames the couple as they cross under the bright afternoon sky in Shibuya.
  • Seen from behind, the bride's long dark hair and pale dress move as the couple cross in the afternoon sun.
  • In black and white, the groom in a white shirt and the bride walk through the thick of the Shibuya crowd.
  • The couple cross beneath the bright pink billboards of Shibuya, the crowd all around them.
  • Close on the hem of the bride's ruffled dress and her heels on the textured pavement as she steps off the kerb.
  • The couple walk out of the crowd on the crossing, a billboard overhead and the city full behind them.
The couple stand small beneath a giant billboard face, the eyes filling the frame above them, Shibuya pre-wedding photos on a bright afternoon.
In black and white, the couple walk beneath an enormous painted face on a Shibuya billboard.
The groom in sunglasses and the bride walk beneath a giant billboard face, colour bright behind them in Shibuya.

Then we moved into the streets behind it, where the scale shifts quickly: narrower lanes, lanterns strung overhead, an alley of tiny bars beside the tracks, stairways down below the street. Out here nobody knew who they were, and Shibuya carried on around them without paying much attention.

The couple walk a Tokyo street in the afternoon sun, the buildings soft and bright behind them.
On a Shibuya street, the bride lifts a hand to the groom's face as he holds her close.
In black and white, the couple stand nose to nose on a Tokyo street, the city blurred behind.
In black and white, the groom leans his cheek toward the bride as she looks past the camera.
The groom sits in sunglasses beside a colourful shop poster in Shibuya while the bride stands next to him.
  • The couple walk a narrow Shibuya backstreet under paper lanterns, a steep stone wall on one side.
  • The groom holds the bride close in a narrow lane strung with lanterns, small bars and doorways beside them.
  • The couple embrace in a quiet lane of lanterns and wooden doorways behind the busy streets of Shibuya.
  • The bride wraps an arm around the groom in a lane of hanging lanterns, the street empty behind them.
  • The couple stand in front of old shop shutters in a Shibuya backstreet.
  • In black and white, the couple walk a cluttered Shibuya alley of signs and posters.
  • In black and white, the bride lifts a hand to her hair as the groom looks at her, close against dark leaves.
  • The bride looks down as the groom leans in, her long dark hair falling over the lace of her dress.
  • A lane of tiny bars and red lanterns runs beside the railway in Shibuya as the afternoon light fades.
  • In black and white, looking out from a tunnel at the crowds on a Shibuya street.
  • The groom touches the bride's face in front of a wall layered with stickers in Shibuya.
  • In black and white, the bride pauses alone in a long concrete passage beneath the city.
  • In black and white, the couple walk down a steep staircase into the low light below the street.
  • In black and white, the couple descend a narrow stairway together, pipes and lights overhead.

Two days later they would marry in an old inn while the rain drummed on the roof and turned the garden deep green beyond the windows. Here it was concrete, traffic and the sun between buildings: the same wedding week, and a completely different Japan. As they headed for the party, the gap in the weather ended in a sunset, the only one any of us had seen in weeks. It was weather, not an omen. But it was theirs.

Once Upon a Tokyo

At the end of the walk, sixty-six people were waiting downstairs at The Music Bar Cave Shibuya, a basement listening bar built around more than three thousand records. It had a retro feel, and it was incredibly cool: vinyl floor to ceiling, a DJ at the turntables, old punk posters on the brick and warm bulbs overhead. Their welcome sign at the door, in deep purple, read “Once Upon a Tokyo”, a good title for the beginning of their week. We had asked the bar for drinks with a Japanese, seasonal accent and a proper mocktail for anyone not drinking, so the menu ran from matcha highballs to a fizz of matcha soda, pear and sansho pepper.

Friends who had crossed oceans were already finding one another, a friend kept the night moving as MC, and the best friends made their speeches. The couple who had spent the previous hour almost anonymous in the streets were suddenly at the centre of everything. Outside, Shibuya had carried on without them. Inside, nearly everyone in the room had come to Japan because of them.

Their deep purple welcome sign stands on an easel at the door of the Shibuya record bar, warm bulbs hanging behind it.
In black and white, the couple come down the stairs into their welcome party at a Shibuya record bar.
In black and white, the couple sit together in front of a wall of vinyl records at their welcome party in Shibuya.
The record bar is packed with guests at the welcome party, warm light over the counter and the crowd.

The Hour Before

The rain came back as soon as the party finished, and it stayed through their wedding at Jinya and for two more weeks after that. What these Shibuya pre-wedding photos hold is the hour before the wedding grew: before the speeches, before sixty-six people became almost seventy under one ryokan roof, before everyone they loved walked into the story. For one hour, on the way to all of that, they had Tokyo to themselves. Or as close as anyone ever gets to having Shibuya to themselves.

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