here's the synopsis from ikko's weddin' which was on da 21st. sorry for the one week delay. will post pics shortly.

ikko's big day

the day has finally come. it seemed so long ago when she first told us that she was getting married. met up with aki, kaoru, hide, hiyan and one of the aki & kaoru's classmate from high school @ shimbashi. headed to the nikko hotel in odaiba and we put the final touches on our weddin' gift (i forget the name of it japanese). the ceremony was held in this nice little chapel in the hotel. had a cellist and opera singers with an american priest! i was hopin' to see a more japanese style weddin' but oh well. the ceremony was short and sweet and when it came time for the groom to kiss the bride, he only gave her a little peck on da cheek. boo!!! after the ceremony, we went outside and threw flower petals at them as they walked to this bell for pictures. i finally got to meet ikko's sister and family. the mom, sister and ikko all totally look alike. after all the pictures, we headed back into the hotel and gave our gifts and received our seatin' assignments. the tables were grouped by special kanji. kaoru explained all the ones that i couldn't read. our table's kanji was ai (love). the tables were set up in an interestin' way, since they both work at the police department, they all the police department peeps in the front 5 tables. the middle 5 tables were for friends (us) and the back 5 tables were for family. kinda interestin', no? after gettin' our seatin' assignments, we were led into this one room for drinks and to relax. hiyan warmed a bit cuz he was goin' to play and sing a song @ da reception. we went into the reception hall and it was phat!!! from what i hear, a 150 ppl reception costs quite a lot of money. based on the menu and overall production design of everything, probably the first thing that i noticed was the 4m high cake!

the kanpai speech was given by the head of the department. and after that, all the police peeps came up to the head table and continually poured tsutomu's glass with beer and he was poundin' each one. we barely even started the meal and he must put away at least 2 big bottles of beer.

the first course was this appetizer dish that had caviar w/gold flakes and this foi-gras. i don't really care for this stuff but felt obligated to eat it. 6/10 (would've gotten higher scores if it weren't for the stuff i don't like)

next was this pumpkin/apple cream soup. 7/10

the next part of the program was ikko's bday cake. kaoru, aki, hide, hiyan and i got to sing happy birthday to her which was koo. after that, ikko went to change into a different dress. each table was supposed to guess which color it was goin' to be out of: blue, pink, yellow or green. @ our table, there was 3 blue, 4 pink, 3 yellow and no green. it ended up bein' green.

next on da menu: tai (snapper) in this sauce with veggies. grubbin'! 8/10

for some strange reason, they brought out sherbet. it was called ao ringo (blue apple). it was good! 9/10

when we thought ikko was goin' to come back, they announced these 2 chefs, who then flambéed the steaks for everyone right there. the steak didn't look to appetizin' @ first, even after the sauce was put on. however, it was so tender. 9/10

shortly thereafter, ikko and tsutomu made their 2nd grand entrance. tsutomu in his police uniform and ikko in....a green dress! then they proceed to light everyone's centerpiece. the colors were pretty dope. then they poured these two liquids together into the fluorescent fountain thinga majiggy which looked koo in the dark.

next up: sushi!?! was pretty good but didn't seem to fit with the theme of the whole meal. 6/10

then the little strawberry cream cake. was delicious! 9/10

right after that part of the program, they were persuaded to kiss by the party and so they did. this time however, it was a real kiss!!

then there was some down time after that, so i decided to take some pics of random stuff. then it was time for hiyan to perform. he was so nervous throughout the meal. when he started to play, i could see his hands shakin' but he loosened up a lot after the first few chords and played/sang a beautiful song. he got mad props from a lot of ppl after that. he then went to town on all the food and started to drink. he didn't want to drink cuz it would make his voice even more messed up on top of the cold that he had.

the next part of the program was the letters to the parents and the slide show. kaoru got really emotional at this time. so emotional that it kinda rubbed off on me. after that, the bride, groom and parents made their grand exit. the waiters/waitresses brought our gift bags out at this time. it was this pretty big bag.

after that, we had to wait in this line to thank the parents and bride and groom. the police group did this routine and then started to throw tsutomu up in the air and then swing him around like a jump rope.

we got all of our stuff together and then headed to ginza to set up for the nijikai (the after party). hide & kaoru were the mc's, aki was the dj and i was the vidcam man.

ikko & tsutomu were a little late so the peeps that were already there, started the party. when they finally arrived, we started the program. kaoru, hide & aki had some fun games to play. they had a bride/groom trivia game. some of the answers that the groups came up with were hilarious. another game we played was the cell phone game. we had everyone sign in, pay their $$$ (of course, gotta get that outta da way first) and write their cell # on a paper. then ikko would draw a paper and tsutomu would call it. if your phone rang, you won a prize. the grand prize for that one was a helicopter tour of tokyo. wish i could've won that one. we also had another bday cake for ikko. we finally wrapped everything up and had everyone take a polaroid on their way out with the ikko & tsutomu. what started out like a nice little party favor, resulted in some outrageous photos.

after the nijikai ended, tsutomu's crew bounced to the sanjikai (after-after party) in roppongi, while ikko's crew (us) had a mock sanjikai @ denny's. had a good time talkin' bout everything and ppl reflectin' back to the old times. couldn't really relate to the latter but all in all, it was a wonderful day. gochininarimasu to hiroko for treatin' all of us.

This entry was posted by kaz, on 火曜日, 3月 29, 2005. You can leave your response.