Shige's Wedding

The happy couple.

Last night Shige finally tied the knot!  They had a small reception at a hotel in Nagatacho which was very nice and pretty informal.  It was really nice to see a lot of old friends and acquaintances.  Some of the people I had completely forgotten about.  When I walked into the hotel I was greeted almost immediately by a group of guys that were all involved in "Tomono Kai" in Yachiyo city.  The rest of the gang were all in a coffee shop having drinks waiting for the festivities to begin.  As we headed up to the banquet room we ran into Shige's parents.  His dad was so glad to see me and talked my ear off, saying how good a friend I had been to Shige and how I was really more like a brother.  It felt good.  

Things started off when Shige and Mizuho entered on the first floor and we were all standing above on the second floor. They walked around the foyer as we dropped flower petals on them. During the reception there were 4 speeches and I was the last one.  I don't know if that made me super special or something else.  We were all given name tags with our names of course and our relationship to the couple.  The funny thing was that all his friends from Yachiyo were from Tomono Kai and they all had "volunteer" on their name tags.  I think I was the only one of Shige's friends that had 親友, or best friend, on his name tag.  I did feel privileged.  The speech went well.  Any one interested in seeing pictures you can find them here.