The first couple to be married at Nijo castle.

It was post-wedding at the first wedding I had ever gone to. Members of the wedding party were at quite a nice bar when a lady enquired as to which one of us was the unlucky bastard.

Hmmm… bitter perhaps? Had it been her dream for as long as she could remember, to be married in splendid fashion, dressed in the finest silk, in some exotic, far-away land at a UNESCO world heritage site? Perhaps, even in Kyoto, Japan? Me thinks, yes.

Oh, the cruelness of fate. Had she been born some years later, her life could have been so very different. And perhaps it will be for the 22 couples so far who, for ￥600,000 a pop, will be tying the knot at Nijo castle by the end of the year. This chance is limited to just 30 couples so, don’t leave it too late and wonder what could’ve been. Tel: 075-841-0096

Photo from the Mainichi newspaper article (in Japanese).