ELOPEMENTS IN JAPAN
A place to make your promises. A reason to return.
Nara
An elopement with us is a day for the two of you, somewhere in Japan you’ve chosen, designed around what you love. Elopements start from ¥1M, including planning, 37 Frames photography, on-the-day transport and most location permits. Film is optional.
You’re choosing where a part of your shared history will happen. Somewhere you’ve wanted to experience together, or a place you already know and will come to know differently.
There is the anticipation of the journey, and the significance of what you’re traveling to do. Your elopement brings them together. The words you’ll say to each other become inseparable from where you said them.
37 Frames creates elopements in Japan around that connection, with planning, art direction and photography considered together. We’re interested in what draws you here and how you want to experience it, so the day reflects the people you are and the life you’re making together.
Why a destination elopement in Japan?
Traveling together changes what you pay attention to. You notice how a place welcomes you, find things you want to show each other, and spend time in conversations that everyday life tends to interrupt. Make your promises within that journey and the place takes on another significance altogether.
Japan gives us a great deal to work with. A garden can draw your attention toward the mountains beyond it. A remarkable stay can make the hours around the ceremony as compelling as the ceremony itself. Dinner can be something you have been looking forward to for months. We consider how those experiences belong together, and how much time you will want inside each one.
An elopement concentrates our attention on the two of you. There is room to follow a shared interest quite a long way, or to spend the day becoming familiar with one extraordinary place. We love discovering which kind of day makes you both lean forward.
An interest in art became a whole day
For one couple, the connection was art. Their elopement brought together a private villa in Nara, an art forest and a pottery studio in Mie. At the studio, they made two halves of a moon vase. The potter would glaze and fire it, then send it home to California.
The experience grew from something they already loved sharing. That gave us a direction for the places, the people and the time between them. And it gave the couple something wonderfully particular to look forward to after their vows.
Your own starting point might be architecture, food, the mountains, or a place that has become part of your conversations over the years. Tell us what holds your attention. We’ll enjoy finding out where it could take you.
The freedom comes from knowing the place
The private garden you love in a photograph may be part of an inn with its own daily life. A landscape may allow portraits but need different permissions for a ceremony. The distance between two beautiful settings can change how much of the day you actually spend in either.
This is where our years in Japan become useful to you. We work through season, privacy, access, light and travel together, with the people responsible for each place. We know many settings personally; when a promising property is unfamiliar, we visit before asking you to commit.
There is structure underneath everything we do. That structure is what gives the day freedom. The arrangements give you time to enjoy what you came for, including the parts you could never have scheduled.
The day and the photographs share the same understanding
Our photography is loose editorial, with a documentary core and a cinematic sense of light, movement and place. We compose carefully and give direction lightly. The frame can be beautifully considered while the people inside it are entirely themselves.
Dee’s planning team and Tracey’s Creative Team develop the experience together, with distinct responsibilities. We understand why you chose the place, what you want to do there and the visual references you respond to. The ceremony, the time to explore and the photographs can then belong to the same day.
Good to know
Questions & answers.
Where can we elope in Japan?
Couples come to us for a private garden in Kyoto, the lakes beneath Mt Fuji, an old ryokan in Hakone, or our bamboo forest in Tochigi, a quiet alternative to the crowds at Arashiyama. Many of the most memorable places aren’t wedding venues at all, and they feel like yours for that reason. We begin with what draws you, then find where it can happen.
When is the best time to elope in Japan?
Choose your dates first, and we’ll find where the season is. Cherry blossom travels north through spring and autumn color comes down from the mountains, so a fixed week can often be met by moving the place rather than the date. Winter is clear and dry around Tokyo and Fuji, with deep snow in the mountains and the north. Midweek, gardens and shrines are often at their quietest.
Can friends or family come to our elopement in Japan?
Yes. A friend can lead your ceremony and another can watch it, and it’s still your elopement, with the rest of the day belonging to the two of you. When family and friends are there to share the whole day, it becomes an intimate wedding, and we can plan their welcome, where they stay and the evening with the same care as yours.
Read the story: An Aomori elopement, with two friends there
Can we have a Shinto ceremony, or one of our own?
Either, or both. At a shrine, you marry before a priest, most often in kimono, and seal it with three cups of sake. Anywhere else, the ceremony is yours to write. It can be led by a celebrant, by a friend, or by someone from our team, who by then knows the two of you well. Some couples do both: their own vows first, then a blessing at a shrine.
What do we wear to elope in Japan?
There are no rules, and that freedom is the heart of an elopement. Japan has one quirk worth knowing early: in some places a wedding dress brings a sizeable permit fee that other clothes wouldn’t. Most shrines ask for kimono, and the few that welcome a dress ask for a modest one. You can be dressed in kimono at a kimono studio or, at extra cost, by a dresser who comes to your room.
Read the story: Japanese wedding kimono, from shiromuku to hakama
Do we need a permit to elope in Japan?
You need permission, and it’s ours to arrange. Permission matters in Japan, at a shrine, a temple or a public park, and every ceremony and photograph we make has it. Some places also ask for a formal permit and a fee, and what you wear can change that. Our Japanese team asks in Japanese, well ahead: a permit can take weeks, sometimes months, and Tokyo and Kyoto ask the most. Our years here and the people we know make most places possible. Every place in our photographs was arranged this way, so the day itself can be unhurried.
Is a Japan elopement legally binding?
It can be, with paperwork. In Japan, a marriage takes effect when it’s registered at a city or ward office, not through any ceremony. Most of our couples marry legally at home, so their time here belongs to the celebration. If you’d like to register in Japan as well, tell us early: the paperwork starts before you travel, and the decision can take longer than your stay.
What if it rains, or Mt Fuji hides?
The day goes ahead. For every outdoor ceremony we hold another setting in reserve, one you’d be just as happy to marry in, and rain has its own beauty here: one couple married under the eaves of an old inn while a koto played and the spring rain fell. Around Fuji, more than twenty years of watching the mountain have taught us where to go when the sky closes in: a shrine among old cedars at its foot, mist on the lakes, moss across the old lava forest.
What does an elopement day in Japan look like?
We pace it to the light rather than the clock, with time to simply be where you are. Getting ready takes about two hours. On most of our elopements, a private driver takes you between places, so your hours go to the places themselves.
A few things to know before you inquire
At 37 Frames, an elopement is a day for the two of you. A friend can lead your ceremony and another can watch it. If family or friends are joining you for the day, we plan an intimate or micro wedding, giving the guest experience its own attention.
Elopements start from ¥1M, including planning, 37 Frames photography, on-the-day transport and most location permits. We design the rest of the day around the two of you, and your own proposal sets it out. Film and wedding content creation are optional, with the scope and wider budget explained in Japanese yen.
Read the story: What an elopement in Japan costs
Begin with an inquiry around a year before your intended date. For couples hoping to work with us, our reply includes our Collections and Wedding Planning guides so you can spend more time with our approach. After you have read them, and if availability and alignment are right, we’ll invite you to a complimentary one-hour Zoom. By then, we hope you’ll have plenty you want to talk about.
And afterwards, Japan holds something of your history. You may return to the same garden, stay in the same rooms or find yourselves remembering it somewhere far away. The place continues with its own life. It has become part of yours, too.
Tell us about your elopement