I was a swordsman in ancient Japan

The pre-Buddhist wedding is a wedding held in a Buddhist hall. It is the least used wedding among the three types of weddings.

Whether it is a wedding in front of the gods or a wedding in front of the Buddha, the links are quite complicated.

Take the most complicated pre-god wedding as an example. If you want to hold a pre-god wedding, it may take half a day just to go through the complicated procedures.

The first is to participate in the ceremony.

Accompanied by Gagaku, the priest and priestess who preside over the ceremony guide the bride and others into the main hall of the shrine.

Under the guidance of the maiden and the dowry, after entering the interior of the temple, the relatives of the groom sit on the right side facing the gods, while the bride himself sits on the left side facing the gods. Sit in order from the place closest to the worshiping god.

Followed by the ritual of chastity. "Xiuying" means a ritual of removing taboos to cleanse the body and mind. The groom, bride and all attendees will receive the decontamination blessing performed by the Zhaizhu.

Then there is the Adhan of the Lord of Zhai, and the Lord of Zhai will perform the adhan at the beginning of the ceremony.All participants must bow to the gods along with the Lord of the Veterans, and then the Lord of the Vegetarians will open the ceremony of "Congratulations" to report to the gods that the bride and groom are about to get married.

It is not until this time that the wedding officially begins, and the bride and groom will then perform a series of complicated activities such as three sacrifices, recitation of oaths, priestess dancing a blessing dance, and worshiping jade strings.

In terms of the complexity of the wedding, the pre-Buddha-style wedding is no different from the pre-God-style wedding.

Because there are quite a lot of links in the pre-shrine wedding and the pre-Buddhist wedding, and the battle is quite large, only those with a little extra money in their families have the ability to hold weddings in shrines and Buddhist halls.

Therefore, the weddings held by most commoners and some samurai are pre-personal weddings with simpler procedures and almost no cost.

The pre-personal wedding is basically held at the groom's home.

The groom takes the bride to his home, and then holds a three-offering ceremony and reads the oath under the witness of relatives and friends.After reading the vows, the wedding can be declared over.

If it is too troublesome, even the three dedication ceremonies can be omitted. After the bride is taken to her home, the oath will be read under the witness of relatives and friends, and then the wedding can be declared over.

Because there is almost no cost for a wedding in front of a person, most of the weddings held by common people are in front of a person.

No matter how poor you are, you still have the ability to take the bride to your home and invite all your relatives and friends over, right?

Because of the small number of links, it usually only takes 05 minutes to hold a pre-personal wedding.

The wedding that Ogata and A-Machi held today is a pre-personal wedding.

Marriage here in Japan also pays attention to good days and auspicious days.

Although Ogata didn't pay much attention to this, after thinking about it for a while, he decided to do as the Romans do, trying to make the wedding ceremony more ceremonial.

After deciding to hold a wedding in Edo before the official departure to Ezo, Ogata and A-machi began to look for a suitable day to get married.

In the end they chose today, which is the day of the month.

Because the wedding was held in the afternoon, after the two of them got up this morning, they decided to take a stroll outside while there was still time in the morning.

That's why the two of them played on Guangxiao Road in Ryogoku this morning, and then listened to talk and storytelling together there.

The place where the two held their wedding was naturally held in this house they borrowed from Dongcheng House.

Host in the biggest room in the house.

At this moment, the relatives and friends invited by Ogata and Atachi have all gathered.

Uncle Qing, Ah-ding's only relative at present, and the Huluya team headed by Lin and Genichi were naturally present.

In addition to Uncle Qing and the Huluya party, Ogata also invited Kondo and Guasheng.

Uncle Qing, Huluya's party, Kondo, and Guasheng, there are a total of 9 people. These are all the guests who attended the wedding ceremony of Ogata and Atachi.

They were all dressed in formal attire, sitting on both sides of the room, quietly waiting for today's two protagonists to arrive.

Ogata had never directly mentioned his relationship with A-Machi to the whole group of Calabash House.

But it doesn't matter whether Ogata said it or not.

Lin and the others are not stupid, they have long seen that the relationship between Ogata and A-cho is not ordinary.

Therefore, the fact that "Ogata and Atachi have a very close relationship" has always been tacit in the hearts of Huluya and others.

Therefore, Lin and the others were not surprised at all when Ogata and Ah-machi announced to the Calabash House group that they were planning to hold a wedding before leaving Edo.

Lin is quite generous.

After Ogata announced that he was going to hold a wedding with A-Machi, he directly allocated a sum of money to Mamiya and the others to buy dresses immediately.

A few days ago, after receiving the invitation from Ogata, Kondo and Guasheng said without hesitation that they would definitely go.

Although Kondo is a bit simple and honest, he is also a rough and delicate person. He attends other people's weddings sloppily and it is his own master's wedding. Kondo can't do this kind of thing.

Therefore, Kondo went around to ask his friends who lived in Edo for the past few days, and successfully borrowed a set of formal clothes.

And Guasheng has lived in Edo for so many years, and has attended countless friends' weddings, so she naturally has formal attire for formal occasions.

Although Lin, Makimura, and Asai's wounds are still a long time away from healing, they can still do things like wearing formal clothes and sitting to attend a wedding.

Not long after everyone took their seats, the two protagonists finally arrived.

Ogata was the first to enter the room.

The upper body is covered with a black haori with long sleeves and a long hem, and the pattern of bellflowers is embroidered in 5 places including the back of the haori.The undershirt under the haori is also black.The lower body is wearing a black and white striped hakama, the belt is tied into a cross knot, and the feet are wearing white socks. This is Ogata's current attire.

Ogata's current outfit is a very standard "Monfu Haori Hakama".

The so-called "monzuki hakama" is the highest-level male dress in the Edo period, and it is generally only worn on special and important occasions such as weddings.

Originally, family crests could only be used by officials and nobles. During the Warring States period, family crests began to be widely used by the children of the samurai family.

In the current Edo period, even many commoners have family crests.

Although Ogata came from a poor samurai family in the Hirose domain, he was also a child of the samurai family, so Ogata naturally also had a family crest.

Kikyo is the family crest of the Ogata family.

As for why the family crest of his own family is Kikyo, Ogata is not quite sure.

Perhaps it was just because his ancestors thought the Kikyo pattern was handsome, so he chose the Kikyo pattern as the family crest of the Ogata family.

Many families choose the family pattern so casually.

After the family crest became popular, except for the chrysanthemum pattern representing the royal family and the sunflower pattern representing the shogun, other family crests tended to be abused.

Many samurai and commoner families decided on which family crest was more handsome, and decided on this family crest as their own family crest.

After deciding to hold a wedding with Ogata, Ogata immediately found a clothing store that could customize clothes, and asked the store to help prepare a set of Monsuke hakama embroidered with his Ogata family crest.

Ogata made the order on the same day and received the clothes the next day.

Because it is very easy to prepare a large number of haori hakamas without family crests in advance, and customers can embroider what family crests they want, and they can embroider them directly.

If you are quick, you may be able to prepare the "Montsuki Haori Hakama" that meets the customer's requirements in just 2 hours.

The clothing store where Ogata ordered clothes was very conscientious.

When Ogata came to pick up the clothes, he also gave Ogata a small gift, a fan with their Ogata family's bellflower pattern engraved on the handle.

In Ogata's impression, this seemed to be the first time he wore clothes embroidered with his own family crest.

The one who followed Ogata into the room was naturally Atachi.

A-Machi lowered his head slightly, folded his hands in front of him, followed Ogata, and walked slowly into the room.

The hair is combed into Wenjin Takashimada's bun, and the kimono, gown, gown, belt, and cloth socks are all white as snow. The chest sword, lace, Suehiro and other accessories are also white. The famous "Kakugakure" headgear is what A-cho is wearing now.

The outfit on A-Ming's body is naturally the wedding dress Bai Wugou that girls only wear when they get married.

There are generally two types of headgear for Bai Wugou: white cotton cap and horn hidden.

"White cotton hat" is a large oval hat. Wearing a "white cotton hat" means that no one but the groom can see the bride's face until the wedding is over. The "spiritual power" hidden in the book means to eliminate disasters.

As for "jiaoyin", it is to wrap a circle of white silk around the bride's hair, and then wear coral hairpins or silver hairpins for decoration, which means "tighten its edges and corners, be gentle and obedient", and imply that the bride is virtuous and gracious. moral hope.

When he was shopping for Bai Wugou, A-Ming thought the "white cotton cap" was too ugly, it looked like he was wearing a helmet, so he chose "Kuoyin" as his headgear.

The two who finally arrived at the scene walked to the northernmost end of the room at a leisurely pace, and then sat down side by side.

Genichi, Mucun, Kondo, and Guasheng were sitting on Ogata's right hand.

On the left hand side of Machi are Kei-shu, Rin, Makimura, Asai, and Shimada.

Generally speaking, the parents who are closest to the bride and groom are the parents of the bride and groom.

Ogata and Atachi's parents are no longer alive. Although Uncle Qing and Atachi are not related by blood, the relationship between the two is as close as uncle and nephew. Atachi has always regarded Uncle Qing as his half father, so Uncle Qing Sitting in the seat closest to Machi, there was no problem at all.

But who should sit closest to Ogata?That's where it gets tricky.

After discussions with Lin and others, it was finally decided that Yuan Yi would take this seat.

Genichi can also be regarded as Ogata's master.

A while ago, under the guidance of Genichi, Ogata just developed two new tricks, "Dragon Tail Flash" and "Waterfall Erlian".

So Yuanyi is undoubtedly the most suitable person for this position.

After the two protagonists, Ogata and Atachi, arrived, the wedding officially began.

The first is the three dedication ceremony.

A small table was placed in front of Ogata and A-Machi, on which there were red shallow-bottomed wine glasses in three sizes: small, medium, and large, and a jug of wine.

Ogata picked up the smallest size wine glass first, poured almost half a glass of wine, and then held the small wine glass to his lips.

There are rules on how to drink these wines.

You can't be bored in one mouthful, you have to drink it three times first.

In the first 2 sips, I only let my lips sip the wine, and it was not until the third sip that I completely drank the wine in the glass.

After drinking the wine in the glass, Ogata handed the small wine glass in his hand to A-Machi beside him.

After refilling the small wine glass with half a glass of wine, A-Machi repeated the steps Ogata had just done, drinking the wine in the glass three times.

After both of them drank from the small wine glass, Machi put down the small wine glass in his hand and picked up the medium-sized wine glass.

This time, it was Machi who drank first.

After A-Machi poured half a glass of wine into this medium wine glass, he drank it three times as before, then handed this medium wine glass to Ogata, and poured another half glass of wine into this medium wine glass, and then Ogata also divided it into three times Drink the wine in the medium wine glass.

After drinking the wine in the medium wine glass, Ogata put down the medium wine glass, picked up the largest wine glass, and then repeated the drinking steps just now.

He first drank the wine in the glass in three sips, and then handed the big wine glass to A-Ming beside him to drink.

This is the "Three Offering Ceremony", which is also known as "Three Three Nine Degrees", which is a bit similar to the Chinese "Cream of Wine".

Three wine glasses of different sizes symbolize heaven, earth and man.

"Three" is an auspicious yang number in Japanese culture, so the drinks in the three wine glasses are worth drinking three times.

The three wine glasses are divided into three drinks, so both the bride and groom have to drink nine sips of wine, and "nine" is a very positive number in Japanese culture, representing supreme joy and auspiciousness.

After the "Three Dedication Ceremony", the next link is "Oath Reading".

The oath is recited by the groom, and the bride only needs to say her own name when she recites the name of the person who made the oath at the end.

By the way, Mamiya was responsible for writing the oath of Ogata and the others.

When Ogata was planning to find a professional to help transcribe the oath, Mamiya who happened to be beside Ogata said quietly:

"I've been to a lot of weddings before, so I can write vows."

So Xu Bianyi asked Gamiya to help write the oath with the attitude of giving it a try.

And the oath written by Mamiya is actually very formal

How formal is it?

Formal to the entire oath is written in ancient Japanese thousands of years ago

Of course Ogata doesn’t know how to read ancient Japanese, it’s better to say that few people can read ancient Japanese, and only those who have received a very high level of education can understand ancient Japanese.

These days, Ogata has been secretly practicing reciting this oath, until his tongue is almost tied up, and then he can barely read this oath, which is all in ancient Japanese.

After the "Three Dedication Ceremony", Ogata took out the oath that Mamiya had written for him early in the morning, and began to recite it aloud:

"Choose this auspicious day for the wedding."

"From now on, we will respect and love each other, form a family, share joys and sorrows, and live forever."

"May the two of us be happy forever, and I would like to swear on this together."

"Kanzheng two years, November eleventh."

"Husband: Ogata Yishi."

After Ogata's voice fell, A-Machi followed up and said loudly:

"Wife: Machi."