婚約式 and 結婚式
Konyakushiki and kekkonshiki. To me 婚約式 is an engagement ceremony whereas 結婚式 is a wedding ceremony, two separate events, but how it is for Japanese people?
posted by Annick
Comments 4
Well that is how they are defined, I guess. I'm not sure what is involved with a Japanese 婚約式... I don't think all religions and countries have them? Anyone know what, if anything they do to celebrate the engagement?
I didn't know there was even such a thing as an "engagement cermony" anywhere? Sounds like it's to do with arranged marriages or something... Maybe this is something that's done in societies which might have stricter laws on 婚約破棄 "kon'yakuhaki" (breaking off a marriage engagement).
Also, is 婚約式 (kon'yakushiki) even a real Japanese word? It's not taught on this site and I can't find it in a dictionary.
However there is another word, 結納式 (yuinoushiki), which does actually seem to mean something like that. 結納式 seems to be a traditional Japanese ceremony where engagement gifts (結納) are formally exchanged. ^^
In my place, we had engagement ceremonies before, I don't know if people are still doing that, nobody is getting married anymore nowadays. The last time I went to one, I was 6 years old so I don't remember well, my cousin and I had to bring flowers and the engagement ring to the woman and a money pouch to the man, then there was a little ceremony where they were promising to get married a few months later.
婚約式 doesn't seem like a common word indeed.
I found this
http://www.weddingwire.com/wedding/UserViewWebsiteToolPhotoAlbum?wid=e2cf1f268a8fa31c&pid=077a99d86746e342
- I know what you mean about nowadays... weddings themselves are uncommon enough. I'm gonna ask people here in England if they've ever heard of engagement ceremonies, maybe ask older people; I'm pretty interested now! :P
That link was really interesting and I see she uses the word "kon'yakushiki" too, so I guess it's a real word.
If I ever travel to Japan, their church in Shibuya seems like the kind I'd like to go to with bilingual Japanese+English sermons and congregation who can also speak English. The link to the church homepage gave me a good idea related to one of my previous posts. A lot of churches weekly upload mp3s of their messages to their websites, and it seems like Japanese churches do too. I'm probably going to start listening to some, as I'm interested if I can keep up with and understand they are saying. Should be a good freely available Japanese learning resource for me. :)
