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Shotgun weddings, booming business
Wed, Dec 05, 2007 The Straits Times
TOKYO - THERE was a time when a pregnant Japanese bride was associated with a nervous groom and a shotgun-toting future father-in-law. Not any more. Pregnancy before marriage is no longer a social stigma, and the swelling numbers of pregnant brides have become the latest cash cow for the wedding industry. The Asahi Shimbun reported yesterday that wedding planners, hotels and travel companies now offer services that accommodate the special needs of pregnant brides.

They bring business during the off-season months in the summer and winter, companies say.

Makoto and Naoko Arai, both 29, held a wedding reception at a Tokyo restaurant in October. Naoko was five months pregnant.

Couples usually take about a year to prepare for their big day but the Arais had to pull off theirs in less than four months - for obvious reason, Asahi noted. And it was all done with the help of Sweet W Tokyo Wedding, a Tokyo-based wedding planner.

The company has been offering the Omedeta-kon Plan (Maternal Wedding Plan) since it was established three years ago.

Of the 200 or so couples who use the company's services each year, about 30 per cent of the women were pregnant when they first entered the shop or became pregnant while planning their ceremonies.

Sweet W Tokyo Wedding offers the expectant mother sofa seating, cushions and fruit juice when she drops by for consultations.

If she is too tired to go to the shop, a company employee will make a house call.

Watabe Wedding, a Kyoto-based wedding planner, handles 28,000 weddings each year, about 30 per cent of which feature pregnant brides.

In June, the company started offering a wedding programme at resorts designed for shotgun marriages, with a reception menu of food and drinks that are beneficial for pregnancy, reported Asahi.

A local general hospital is on stand-by in case the bride feels unwell.

Compal Bridal World, an Osaka-based wedding planner that started its Sazukari-kon (Godsend Wedding) service last month, has produced a prototype chair for pregnant brides to sit on while exchanging wedding vows with their partners.

Hotels and travel agencies are similarly courting expectant couples. Royal Park Hotel, near Tokyo's Suitengu shrine, known for its deity that promises safe deliveries, started its Maternity Wedding Plan two years ago.

Statistics from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare suggest that about a quarter of firstborns in 2004 were the result of shotgun marriages.

Industry officials say the stigma against such weddings started to disappear in 1997, after pop diva Namie Amuro, who was 20 at the time, announced her marriage and pregnancy.

'Pregnancy has become the only catalyst powerful enough to have independence-minded women make up their minds to formally tie the knot,' Asahi quoted wedding adviser Minako Kume as saying.