Wedding Dresses Video

If you received an invitation to a traditional Japanese wedding, or if you are very curious to find out more about wedding traditions in general, you will see that there are some wonderful things about a Japanese wedding ceremony that distinguish it from other similar occasions. There are Buddhist, Shinto, or Christian types, or the ceremony could be strictly non-religious in nature. The form of the wedding has more to do with the couple's taste than their religious preference.

Traditional Japanese weddings are named Shinto style weddings; these ceremonies are private, and are preformed in shrines. Only intimate family members participate in this service, though there will usually be an older couple there as well, to act in the matchmaker role. The ceremony includes rituals such as drinking sake and in a more modern form the exchanging of wedding rings. The families of the bride and the groom will also exchange glasses of sake to display that the two families are now linked together. Japanese brides wear a shiromuku, a white kimono, for wedding dresses, while the grooms will wear montsuki, a formal black kimono, and the wide legged trousers known as hakama.

When the service concludes at the Shinto shrine, it is time to celebrate the union, and the extended family, friends, co-workers of the couple can gather for the celebration. People typically dress formally, and it is common to see women wearing suits as well as kimono to this event.

An invitation to a Japanese wedding should be replied to as soon as possible and one should not forget that a gift of cash is very essential. Unless a fixed amount is indicated on the invitation card, you will need to decide on the level of intimacy that you share with the couple; a greater degree of closeness involves a larger cash gift. It is standard to give the cash in crisp new bills, which are put into an envelope, named shugi-bukuro, and your name is nicely printed on the front of it. The guests will be presented with gifts as well in the form of wedding mementos known as hikidemono; in recent years there has been a fad where the guests get to pick their gifts from a catalogue.

The wedding reception is normally a very charming event, where the new couple sits on a stage and many people sing songs of celebration or congratulations in their honor. It is not uncommon to see a Western style wedding cake, and in many receptions you will see the newlyweds walk around the room to light candles and greet their friends and family. Rather than staying in their formal wedding dress, the bride will likely change into a less formal kimono.

A Japanese wedding can take styles from a lot of different cultures and traditions, and it is just as possible to see Japanese brides wearing elegant Western wedding dresses as it is to see them in a formal white kimono and elaborate headdress. If you have received an invitation to a Japanese wedding, it is wise to find out what is suitable and what the couple is wanting from their guests. No matter what tradition you come from, you will see that a wedding is a coming together to celebrate a happy couple's love and union.

Silk is an amazing luxurious material with a history that goes back to 2700 BC. Until the Silk Road introduced it to the rest of the world in 1 BC, China was the only producer and consumer of silk, and it used silk in everything from clothing to writing paper. Silk was truly a material that was reserved for those who could afford it, and wearing silk was often considered sign of wealth and affluence, especially during the Tang Dynasty.

It wasn't until 300 AD that silk production spread to Japan, and by 522, the Byzantines had obtained the technique. Around about this time period, the Arabs began manufacturing silk as well, and because sericulture was becoming more well known, silk imports from China became less important. Western countries like Italy began to export their own silk and the Renaissance saw a change in the method of production. France also started to trade silk with Italy, and they remained the two leaders when it came to silk in the European world that did not come from China.

During the Industrial Revolution in Europe, the spinning wheel came to into wide usage, which ended up resulting cheaper manufacturing across the board for cotton, though silk production became more expensive. Silkworm disease epidemics took vast tolls on French silk production, while Japan began exporting a great deal of silk, the same way that China had centuries ago. China was still the largest produce of fabric in the world, though with the advent of nylon and other modern fibers, silk was no longer as rare or as highly prized as it once was.

After the epidemic crisis in Western Europe, Japan began to modernize the sericulture and became one of the world's largest producers at that time. Italy rebounded from the silkworm epidemic but France never recovered. Italian and French agricultural workers stopped growing silk to export to other countries. Japan began to import raw silk when Western Europe stopped their production. Japan and other Asian countries began to export more silk garments.

Japan's silk export business stopped during World War II and due to this Europe and America had to find other sources. Nylon and rayon were just two of the fabrics that replaced silk, and after the war the Japanese silk industry never caught up.

With new technology creating improvements in silk production in general, and with new and exciting fabrics coming up, Japan was still the world's leader in raw silk exports after the Second World war. By the seventies, however, product had declined and Japan stopped exporting raw silk.

At this point, China is still the world's largest producer of silk. In 1996, this country produced 58,000 tons, far ahead of the the second largest producer, which was India with 13,000 tons. In the same year, Japan produced only 2,500 tons. In 1997, however, China's silk production did suffer. Though the global demand for silk during the nineties did dip, silk production was still fairly strong in India and in the UK. There were complaints about the low quality of the silk produced.

Today, 125, 000 tons of silk is still being produced around the world. The majority of the production is in China. Other countries that are producing silk are Japan, United States, Brazil, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Korea, India, and Thailand. The United States is the largest silk importer presently.

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