lots of happiness = poverty? just read and see

This is a wedding present I am preparing for my dear 'brother' Lewis, who will get married this Saturday at the New Otani in Tokyo. Wowow, for those of you who don't know, it is an especially classy hotel known for its excellent service and cuisine.

The good thing about wedding presents in Japan is that you don't have to buy them, the downside is that instead, you will give the couple an 'obligatory' 30,000yen, approximately 300 dollars. Basically that 300 dollars will help the couple break even with their wedding costs, however, I have a feeling my friend's wedding will cost 500 a head since it is at such a ritzy hotel. His superiors may give more, being his superiors and all...but the catch is, his boss is allowed to make a very dull and long speech at the reception.

The bills should be crisp and new and if you plan on giving more, like 40000 yen, you must not give four bills...four is very inauspicious! So you must give 3 -10,000yen bills and 2-5,000yen bills, bringing the total number of bills up to 5. The red envelope is so cute and fancy, used to hold the money after you have secured it in a small white envelope. Then I selected the appropriate white message slip to put in the centre. One should never buy the fancy black/white envelope, which is actually used when presenting cash for funerals!

This will be my second wedding in Japan! I have many more weddings this year, so I will be 寿びんぼ, which means broke from all the happy occasions! If you figure, each wedding at a few hundred each, you'd be broke too! My former colleague Hiroko told me she had too many weddings to attend so I told her I would invite her to my after party, instead. She looked somewhat relieved - ha ha.