NYT: Japanese Find Romance and Rituals Far From Home
By DOREEN CARVAJAL
August 7, 2007

PARIS, Aug. 6 — The first time that Hirosha Watanabe and Naoko Shibuya entered a church was the giddy moment when they marched down the aisle, he in pearl gray tails and she in a frothy wedding dress, to the strains of the Wagner classic “Bridal Chorus.”

They were joined at the altar of the American Church in Paris by a minister, an interpreter, a video maker and a photographer — the players in Japanese wedding packages for lavish Western ceremonies with traditional trappings.

Most of the brides and grooms are more familiar with Shinto practices than Christian rites. But they are flocking to Paris and other romantic European locations in search of rituals, stained glass and bellowing pipe organs, all chosen from convenient online catalogs.

So many Japanese wedding tourists are trading golden rings in the peak summer and autumn seasons that the interdenominational American Church enlisted retired pastors for the marriage ministry dominated by the couples. A towering Adventist church outside Paris and the American Cathedral, which offers Episcopal ceremonies, also perform large numbers of the ceremonies. the rest