As part of the theme for our wedding invitations, Katelyn and I decided to incorporate apples and apple trees—which all of you will be able to see in person at Clark’s Cove Farm, which is a working apple orchard—as well as Japanese characters, since I’ve been to Japan on three occasions and hope to share the experience of visiting overseas with Katelyn once we are married.
Because our "wedding webpage" on http://www.theknot.com/ would not allow me to post Japanese writing for readability, I have put this information here on the blog.
Of course, the Japanese language in written form is not something that is easy to understand; I took two years of Japanese classes in college and still have trouble reading the language sometimes. With this in mind, we’ve put together this guide to reading the Japanese on our invitations so that you can understand them.
Before you even open the envelope upon receiving your invitation in the mail, you will notice a line of Japanese characters underneath your names on the front of the envelope. These characters are Katakana, which is the written Japanese language used for foreign names and “loanwords” brought into Japanese from other languages. For illustration, I will use my own name as an example.
ブライアン・パーカー
The first five characters represent my first name; in Japanese pronunciation, they read “Bu-ra-i-a-n”. The dot after those characters is called a “nakaten,” which means “middle point.” It is used to separate foreign names in written Japanese. The final four characters are my last name; they read “Paa-kaa.”
If the envelope has been addressed to multiple persons, then it gets a little bit more complicated. For this example, I will use my name again and add Katelyn’s name to it.
ブライアン・パーカーとケイトリン・クーパー
The first set of characters, once again, represents my name. What changes here is the addition of the Japanese character “と,” which is Hiragana—the simple written Japanese language used for sentence particles—that designates “and” in a list. So, to that point of the line, this reads: “Brian Parker and…” The writing returns to Katakana for Katelyn’s name, whose characters read “Ke-i-to-ri-n”—then the nakaten—followed by “Kuu-paa.”
If our invitation is made out to multiple people, this will be how your envelope is addressed. If you are being invited with a guest—a “plus-one,” as they say in the wedding world—then a special Kanji character will appear instead. If I were addressing an envelope to “Brian Parker and a guest,” I would write it as follows:
ブライアン・パーカーと客さま
As before, it is my name as usual and then the Hiragana character for “and;” after that, “客さま” means “kyaku-sama,” which is the honorable word for guest in Japanese. The concept of hosting guests is an integral part of Japanese culture, and we hope to provide all of you with a wonderful experience as you join us for our wedding day in Maine.
Once you have freed the invitation from the envelope, you will see large Hiragana characters on the front of the invitation with the drawing of the apple. These characters—“あい”—are pronounced “ai” and mean “love” in Japanese. The reason for this writing should be readily apparent, as this wedding represents a celebration of the love shared between myself and Katelyn.
When you open the invitation to read the inside of the fold, you will see an apple tree designed and painted by Katelyn. "Carved" into the trunk of this tree are the Japanese characters for our first names
ケイトリンとブライアン
That should explain all of the Japanese writing in our wedding invitations so that you all will be able to clearly understand what all of these strange characters mean once you have your invitation in-hand.
Katelyn and I hope that you enjoyed this unique take on our wedding invitations; and, of course, that you R.S.V.P. with your intentions to come to our wedding on Saturday, October 9th, 2010 at Clark’s Cove Farm in Walpole, Maine!
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