Bubby and Sissy Take the East Coast: Wedding Gifts

Box of edible goodies

For the last installment of the Japanese wedding series, we'll talk about wedding gifts! As I mentioned before, it's custom to bring money to give at weddings, not gifts. On the flip side of that, it's also custom for the bride and groom to give gifts to every guest. And we aren't talking party favors (although they do that too). Each guest that attends gets a large shopping bag full of stuff, including a nice gift. Since Jonathan and I are a couple, we each got individual bags as well as one for both of us. The bride told us that usually each guest is given a catalogue to pick a gift from and you have to fill out a form in Japanese and mail it off. The catalogue is full of very nice gifts - everything from house wares to horse back riding lessons! Since we aren't fluent in Japanese, she picked something out for us on our behalf. Our gift as a couple was a really nice tea pot with cups and saucers and wine tumblers! Our individual bags were full of cakes and other edible goodies. The party favors we were handed as we left were chocolates in the shape of Landmark Tower, where the wedding was held. So nice and fancy! We love everything we got, and are still amazed that guests receive things like this!

Our boxes of edible goodies included 2 baumkuchen cakes, packs of tea (for our tea pot!), bonito flakes (dried flakes of tuna used in cooking, but also given as a gift of good luck), variety packs of rice soup seasoning (wasabi, plum, and seaweed flavors), and packets of an ingredient that I don't know the name of. I'm not sure what it's called, but it's crushed bonito that has been marinated with sesame seeds, soy sauce, sugar, and vinegar. You can either cook with it or sprinkle it on rice or pasta. We'll let you know what it tastes like!