Japanese Wedding Toasts: Cheers, Speeches, and Customs

Who speaks, and when

• The shuhin, the guest of honor, often the groom's or bride's boss or a teacher, gives the first and most formal speech, followed by the kanpai toast from another senior guest.
• Friends give shorter speeches later, often reading from notes, and friends may perform a song or a video.
• Near the end, the bride reads a letter to her parents, and the groom's father or the couple gives the closing thanks.

How long

The guest of honor's speech is three to five minutes and formal. Friends' speeches are two or three. Everything runs to a printed schedule.

What you’ll see

• Imikotoba: words to avoid in a speech, because they suggest separation or ending: cut, break, return, leave, again, divide. Speakers rewrite around them.
• Goshugi: guests give money in a special decorated envelope, in crisp new bills, in odd amounts that cannot be split in two.
• The san-san-kudo at a Shinto ceremony: the couple takes three sips from three cups of sake.
• The bride may change from a white kimono to a colored one to a Western dress through the reception.
• Guests receive a hikidemono, a gift bag, as they leave, often with a catalog to choose from.

If you’re the guest from somewhere else

• If you are asked to speak, avoid the imikotoba. A Japanese friend can check your draft in a minute.
• Bring goshugi in the right envelope, with new bills. The amount is expected to be odd, often thirty thousand yen for a friend.
• 'Omedetō gozaimasu' to the couple and the parents, with a bow.

A toast you could give

Short, warm, specific to the couple, and ending on the phrase. Swap in your own names and your own detail; the shape is what matters.

Yuki welcomed me to Tokyo with a map she had drawn by hand, every station labeled, and I still have it. Kenta, she will take care of you the same way. Omedetō gozaimasu. Kanpai!