The first place they ever travelled together
Aya and John flew in from New York with forty-five guests and married on a hillside above Lake Toya, in the one part of Japan where July feels like early autumn.
There is a horse standing a few metres from the bride.
It is not part of the plan. The horse lives here, on the pasture that runs down from the venue to the tree line, and it has wandered over to see what all the white fabric is about. Aya laughs. John pulls her in. Behind them, Lake Toya sits flat and grey-blue in the afternoon light, ringed by the mountains that hide Rusutsu and Mount Usu. I take the frame. The horse stays exactly where it is.
Later, this will be the photograph everyone asks about. It says something about the day that the most memorable image was the one nobody staged.
New York, by way of two families
Aya and John live in New York. John’s family is Chinese. Aya’s family is Japanese. Their first trip overseas as a couple was to Hokkaido, and it stayed with them the way first trips do: not as a list of places but as a feeling of being somewhere quiet together, far from anyone who knew them.
When it came time to choose where to marry, the question answered itself. They could have picked Kyoto or Tokyo, cities their guests would recognise from a postcard. Instead they chose the island where it started, and asked forty-five people to come and see it for themselves.
That is a lot to ask. A flight to Sapporo, then two hours by road to a lake most of their friends had never heard of. The fact that so many said yes tells you what kind of people Aya and John are, and what kind of people they keep close.
Two rooms, one window each
The venue has separate preparation rooms for the bride and the groom, which sounds like a small thing until you have photographed a wedding where the couple got ready in a hotel corridor. Aya’s room has a vanity, a white sofa and a large window looking out to the trees. John’s has a long wooden table, a piano nobody played, and exposed beams under a sloped ceiling. Both have the kind of soft, even light that makes getting-ready photographs feel like they belong in the same album as the ceremony, rather than a different day.
Hair and makeup was by Maki, a Niseko-based artist who works in English and understands what a Hokkaido summer does to a hairstyle over ten hours outdoors. Aya’s look held from the vanity mirror to the sparklers, which is the only review that matters.
Aya’s dress hung at the window while her hair was finished. Strapless, embroidered with a floral pattern that read as white from across the room and only revealed itself up close. Someone behind her reached for a tissue before the dress was even on. That is usually how it goes. The tears come early, in the quiet, and then everyone composes themselves for the walk.
Across the hall, John did his cufflinks by the window, then the jacket, then the boutonniere. No speeches, no fuss. He looked like a man who had already decided everything that mattered and was simply waiting for the time to arrive.
When she was ready, Aya came down the wooden staircase inside the main house with her bouquet in both hands, her parents a step behind her. John was waiting at the bottom. It was their first look, and it happened indoors, in private, with the doors closed on the guests outside. I would recommend this to any couple. The moment on the stairs was theirs alone. Everything after it belonged to everyone.
Drinks in the woods, parasols in the sun
Guests gathered first in a wooded corner of the property, where cocktail tables had been set up in the shade and a bar was pouring sparkling wine and a pink aperitif into rows of glasses. A few people carried white parasols against the sun. Others had paper fans. Nobody was sweating, which in a Japanese July is a small miracle and, as it turns out, the entire point of Hokkaido.
It was the middle of July. In Tokyo that means air you could wring out. Here it was twenty-four degrees with a breeze coming off the water, and guests who had packed for a Japanese summer spent the afternoon pleasantly surprised. If you are planning a summer wedding in Japan and worried about the heat, this is the part of the country that solves it.
Then everyone walked up the slope to the lawn. The ceremony was set on the grass above the lake: rows of white chairs, a timber arch dressed in flowers and draped fabric, and behind it nothing but water and the far shore. No building in the frame. No road. When you sit in one of those chairs and look forward, you see the couple and then you see Hokkaido.
A lawn, an arch, and the whole lake
Aya arrived at the lawn by car and stepped out onto the grass with a hand on each side to steady her. Her parents walked her to John. It was a short walk. He did not manage to keep a straight face for any of it.
The ceremony was in English, led by an officiant who stood to the side of the arch and let the couple face each other rather than him. They held hands and their flowers and said the things people say, and then they exchanged rings. From where I stood, the moment the ring went on looked like the moment John finally exhaled.
They kissed under the arch. Then they walked back down the aisle through a storm of petals thrown by forty-five people who had come a very long way to throw them, and John lifted Aya clean off the grass halfway down. Family photographs followed, the parents first, then the whole group in front of the arch with the lake as the backdrop nobody had to arrange.
Kagami-biraki
Before anyone could drift back to the drinks, the MC called the couple forward and handed them two wooden mallets. Kagami-biraki is the Japanese custom of breaking open the lid of a sake barrel to mark a beginning. It is loud, it is a little messy, and it is very good at turning a crowd of polite guests into a party. The lid gave way. Red cups went round. The toast that followed was in three languages and needed no translation, and Aya and John kissed in the middle of it with forty-five cups raised around them.
Then the bouquet went over Aya’s shoulder into a scrum of very determined friends.
Into the trees, then out to the light
While guests moved to the deck, we took twenty minutes and walked into the forest that borders the property. Hokkaido woodland in summer is dense and green in a way that Honshu rarely manages, and the light through the canopy is soft and directional at the same time. It does half the work for you.
John stood behind Aya and said something into her ear that I did not hear and did not need to. Then we came back out onto the hillside, found the horse, and made the photograph this story opened with.
This is the case for a venue with land. On a hundred and ten thousand square metres you never have to leave to find a new backdrop. The forest, the pasture and the lake view are all within a five-minute walk of the reception, which means the couple is gone for twenty minutes rather than two hours, and the guests never feel abandoned.
We walked back along the lane between the lampposts, past the fields, John waving at anyone who looked our way. By the time we reached the deck his bow tie had come undone and he had stopped pretending to care. Those are usually the best portraits of the day: the ones taken on the way back, when the couple has forgotten the camera is there.
Dinner on the deck, dancing until the sparklers
The reception was a buffet, served on the deck of the venue’s main building with the lake laid out below the railing. Round tables on the grass, string lights overhead, and place settings that someone had thought hard about: a white plate on a slice of raw timber, a pink napkin in a silver ring, and a hand-written card for every guest. A chef worked an open flame at the edge of the deck: steak, chicken and vegetable skewers over charcoal, tempura in paper-lined baskets, and platters of appetisers on ice with little label cards so nobody had to ask. Locally sourced, cooked in front of you, eaten with a view. It suited the day far better than a plated dinner would have.
The MC ran the evening from a tablet and a microphone, switching between English and Japanese without anyone noticing the seams. Coordination was by Coco Style Wedding, and the mark of good coordination is that I cannot tell you what they did, only that nothing went wrong and nobody looked at a clock.
Speeches came from both families and from friends. John’s side stood on the deck with the lake behind them. Aya read hers from a card at the head table as the sun went down behind the mountains, and John, bow tie long gone, stood next to her and mostly looked at her rather than the guests. At one table, someone was already reaching for a tissue again. At another, three friends were laughing so hard they had to hold the table.
They cut a rectangular cake piled with fruit, fed each other the first slice with the expected lack of dignity, and then the DJ took over and the evening changed gear. Aya and John danced first. After that, a group of their Indian friends took the floor and delivered a choreographed set that had the entire reception on its feet and every phone in the air. I have photographed a lot of wedding dance floors in Japan. Most are polite. This one was not, in the best possible way.
When the outdoor lights came down, the party simply moved inside. The DJ set up again in the function room and it turned into a dance floor without anyone having to negotiate with a manager or watch the clock, which at most Japanese venues would have been impossible. The night ended, as good ones should, with a dip under a tunnel of sparklers.
Why The Destination Lake Toya is the wedding venue Hokkaido was missing
We photograph weddings across Japan, and most of them happen in one of two kinds of places: a hotel ballroom, or a historic garden with a rule book longer than the guest list. Both can be beautiful. Neither is built for a couple from New York who want to break open a sake barrel, dance until midnight, and fly a drone over the lake at dusk.
The Destination Lake Toya is a private wedding and event venue in Toyako, Hokkaido, run by Airtime Japan. It sits on eleven hectares of hillside above Lake Toya, about fifty minutes from Niseko and two hours from Sapporo or New Chitose Airport. Most weddings take the whole property on an exclusive basis, so the only people you meet all day are the ones you invited. It seats up to eighty-six, offers in-house planning as well as working with outside coordinators, and the owner, Mayumi Okunari, has spent more than twenty years running events in Hokkaido. She speaks English fluently. That last point sounds minor. For an international couple trying to plan a wedding from thirteen time zones away, it matters more than almost anything else.
Freedom to run your own day
No rigid timetable, no list of forbidden activities, no coordinator watching the clock. Most Japanese venues hand you a schedule. Here you write it.
Lake, mountains, clean air
Lake Toya, Mount Usu and the Rusutsu ranges in every direction. In July it was twenty-four degrees with a breeze. Tokyo on the same day was well over thirty.
Dedicated preparation rooms
Separate, well-lit rooms for the bride and groom on site. Getting-ready photographs happen here, not in a hotel across town.
Indoor spaces for the evening
A function house and bar for the after-party, or for the wet-weather plan. The celebration moves inside without moving venues.
A Japanese owner who speaks fluent English
Mayumi handles planning and the day itself in English or Japanese. No interpreter, nothing lost between you and the person actually running your wedding.
Drones welcome
Aerial photographs and video are allowed on the property, which is rare in Japan. The dusk images in this story would not exist otherwise.
The two preparation rooms deserve their own mention because so few Japanese venues have them. The bride’s room is on the upper floor with a vanity, a white sofa and a curtained window. The groom’s room is the long dining room with the piano. Both are quiet, both are private, and both are five metres from the staircase where the first look happens.
Notes from a Hokkaido wedding photographer for international couples
We are based in Hokkaido. Our Japan team is Japanese and speaks fluent English, which matters more than it should: venues and vendors here give real preference to Japanese intermediaries, and a booking that takes a foreign planner three weeks of emails often takes us one phone call. We did the site visit with Mayumi in June and walked the property together, so on the day there was nothing left to work out. A few things worth knowing before you plan your own.
Can foreigners get married in Hokkaido?
Yes. A wedding ceremony in Japan is a celebration, not a legal act, so a couple from overseas can hold their ceremony anywhere without paperwork in Japan. Most of our international couples register the marriage at home, before or after, and treat the Hokkaido ceremony as the real wedding. If you do want a legally recognised Japanese registration, it is possible with the right documents and we can point you to the right people.
What is the weather like for a summer wedding in Hokkaido?
July and August in Hokkaido typically sit in the low to mid twenties, with low humidity and a breeze near the lakes. Aya and John’s day was twenty-four degrees. The same date in Tokyo, Kyoto or Osaka would have been ten degrees warmer and far more humid. If you want an outdoor summer wedding in Japan with a reception on the grass, Hokkaido is the only region we recommend without a long list of caveats. Bring a light layer for after sunset.
Can you fly a drone at a wedding in Japan?
Rarely, and only with permission. Most temples, gardens and hotel venues prohibit drones outright, and Japanese aviation law restricts flights near populated areas. The Destination Lake Toya permits drone photography on its own land, which is one of the reasons we recommend it to couples who want aerial images. We fly with a licensed operator and always confirm the plan with the venue in advance.
How far is Lake Toya from Niseko and Sapporo?
About fifty minutes by car from the Niseko and Kutchan area, and around two hours from central Sapporo or New Chitose Airport. Many couples base their guests in Niseko, where there is far more international-standard accommodation, and arrange a coach for the day. There is also a hot-spring resort town on the lake shore for guests who want to stay close by.
How far in advance should we book a Hokkaido wedding venue?
The venue recommends a year ahead for weddings, and six months at the absolute latest. Summer Saturdays go first. Our photography calendar for Hokkaido fills at a similar pace, so once you have a date in mind, ask both of us on the same day.
Aya and John did not choose Hokkaido because it was convenient. They chose it because it was theirs first, before it was anyone else’s, and they wanted the people they love to stand where they had stood. Everything else, the lake, the horse, the sparklers, was the island keeping its side of the bargain.
Twenty years from now, the photographs will not be about a venue. They will be about a mother reaching for a tissue before the dress was on, and a groom who could not stop smiling long enough to say his vows properly. That is what we are there to keep.
James Hirata, Creative Director, Nomad Weddings Japan
The people behind the day
James Hirata is the Creative Director of Nomad Weddings Japan and Nomad Weddings NZ. He is Japanese, based in Hokkaido, and has photographed destination weddings and elopements for international couples across Kyoto, Tokyo, Okinawa, Hokkaido and Queenstown since founding the company.
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