Hello Kyoto community and fellow travel-minded folk!
My fiancé and I are having a very small/informal elopement ceremony in the garden area of our rented Airbnb in central Kyoto this coming October 2023.
It will literally be us and as of right now, two other close friends as witnesses during the ceremony.
We are not looking to do the legal paper work for our elopement ceremony in Japan, and will most likely do the marriage registration when we return home to Canada at the end of October.
However, we still want to have a somewhat meaningful ceremony where we say our vows/recognize our lifelong commitment to each other on this long-planned honeymoon/elopement trip during our Kyoto leg of our tour.
We’ve looked at booking a wedding officiant through Japanese and foreign elopement/wedding companies, but it looks like their cost for even a very short, informal 20-30 minute ceremony that we are going for is $600-$700 CAD.
We are not opposed to spending $200-300 to have someone who is an experienced officiant, it just seems excessive to pay 600+ for the very low-key/relaxed/and short elopement ceremony experience we are trying to create.
If we can’t find anyone, we may simply see how we can craft the ceremony on our own, but just thought I’d see if there were any suggestions or info on this besides going the traditional third-party business route.
Would anyone have any leads on English-speaking wedding officiants in Kyoto that may fit this price range for a short 20-30 minute ceremony?
Thank you in advance for any thoughts!
by OkAcanthocephala874