Happy pair (center) taking pictures with parents and relatives at head table decorated with flowers and vegetables. The arrangement uses more than 10 kinds of colorful vegetables including egg plants, tomatoes and green soybeans in pods.
Kotaro Yamada
O-Mo-Te-Na-Shi : Gorgeous Veggieful Wedding
An increasing number of couples are having unique “agricultural” or “pastoral” weddings at vegetables or fruits farms. Michiyo Koyama, 44, in Inzai-shi, Chiba Prefecture, helps them make their dreams come true by producing “veggie weddings” using vegetables and flowers grown at her family’s farm.
Wedding took place in vinyl greenhouse where green bitter gourd plants are grown to create leaf curtains.
On July 12, Hiromi and Ryoji Tokumoto, 33 and 35, had their wedding reception at one of the vinyl greenhouses of Koyama and her family’s farm, Ito Naegi. “Give it up for the newly weds, Mr. & Mrs. Tokumoto,” the usher introduced them as they entered the vinyl house, cheered on by their guests. The house was available after it was used for raising seedlings of summer vegetables. To prepare for the wedding, Koyama grew 45 bitter gourd plants inside the vinyl house to “create green curtains” and they were blooming.
Guest tables’ centerpieces are made of tomatoes, green peppers and other vegetables. Guests are invited to pick and eat them.
Tables were decorated with colorful arrangements of approximately 20 kinds of vegetables including egg plants, grape tomatoes and green peppers at their centers. Guests were invited to pick and eat them during the party. A bouquet and a headdress for the bride were both designed and made by Koyama herself, using grape tomatoes and sunflowers she grew for the day. The couple and Koyama had more than ten meetings to plan everything. “I was hoping to have a unique wedding. Thanks to the farm family’s support, we coule entertain our guests with visually stimulating scenes and delicious food,” said Ryoji happily.
Hiromi Tokumoto, bride, with bouquet of sunflowers and grape tomatoes in different colors and sizes in hand.
Koyama is a specialist of veggie bouquet designs. She uses nearly 200 kinds of vegetables she grows herself at her farm. In 2013, she established a company called Michiyo Design and started to produce veggie weddings using her original veggie bouquets and arrangements. She also produces weddings in Kansai (west Japan) area. “Japan has vegetables of great variety. I hope people will enjoy them just like they enjoy flowers,” she said.
Michiyo Koyama (left) handing over flower bouquet for bouquet toss to bride (right). Koyama decorated venue with flowers and vegetables she sowed and grew.
(July 20, 2014)