Hitomi Shimatani walks down the asle in faux wedding ceremony

Wednesday 22nd April, 04:00 AM JST

TOKYO —

Singer Hitomi Shimatani, 28, held a wedding ceremony at Aoyama Geihinkan this week 20 as a special promotional event for fans who purchased her single, “SMILES,” the theme song for the new movie “Parallel” in which she stars.

The movie, which portrays the love of a married couple, inspired her to plan a faux wedding that “Shows the world the beauty of marriage.” Her “bridegroom,” 27 year-old Ibaraki resident Masaki Kobayashi, was chosen from about 5,000 contestants.

Aoyama Geihinkan has served as the location of the weddings of celebrity couples such as Mariya Yamada, 29, and Tetsuo Kusano, 41; and Kosei Inoue, 30, and Aki Higashihara, 26, and on this day 30 engaged couples won the opportunity to attend the event.

Shimatani, who was decked out in a dress and accessories worth over 5 million yen, said of the ceremony, “I was so nervous! It was a great experience, though, and made me want to get married as early as possible.”

The starlet, who reportedly has no plans to marry any time soon, however, laughed, “This may have been my once-in-a-lifetime walk down the aisle.”

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Latest 15 of 28 Total Comments Show All

timorborder at 03:45 PM JST - 22nd April

Faux wedding ceremony or not, I really can't understand why Japanese men always wear these terrible dress suits. I always think they're incredibly tacky.

Yep, especially like in the photo above when they almost shine. What are such suits made of? Teflon?
hannari at 03:54 PM JST - 22nd April

Heh... I just rented a 'silvery' tux this past weekend for my fiancee. I wanted classical black, however I was quite firmly steered away from those as they are 'too dark' and 'bland' and quite frankly 'old looking', as they put it. They also insisted that 'it's not just the brides day, you know... the groom should be allowed to wear something with flair too!'.

I imagine they see black suits as a kind of obligatory uniform or something, as that's the dress code for most things. Ah well, some silvery tuxes look better than others.
Wakarimasen at 04:12 PM JST - 22nd April

The goon in the zoot suit looks like he has just soiled himself. wonder what he had to do to win the competition....
LoveUSA at 04:59 PM JST - 22nd April

I like the priest because he knows that this is a fantasy but still participated with his kind heart to wed the couple in the formal Christian ritual.I wonder why they didn't marry in shinto or buddhist style but preferred a Christian ritual? Maybe they felt it is insulting to their gods.
LoveUSA at 05:05 PM JST - 22nd April

To all who bash Kobayashi san - he looks grogeous in his wedding suit but the whole situation is quite surreal and kind of humiliating. He was chosen among 5000 contestants - so he beat you all gaijin men who applied. I am sure some of you who bash him now had applied but he was chosen. Grapes is sour lol... Anyway, the suit is not your size, when i think how you would look like in it I prefer to see you in this suit on JT photo of the day and the best part of it would be the comments below the picture.
Yelena at 06:56 PM JST - 22nd April

They look funny together.
jonnyboy at 10:10 PM JST - 22nd April

so he beat you all gaijin men who applied

for one, i imagine that a tiny percentage of the 5000 were non-japanese, making it highly unlikely that any of them would win, if there was any chance that would be allowed to happen, which i doubt
sf2k at 10:36 PM JST - 22nd April

what a laugh. what does a western ceremony have anything to do with Japanese weddings? Nothing says I love my country more than...using someone else's ceremony

Next up, I expect the faux divorce with the faux little white dog while she lines up for faux chocolates.
polarmalik at 10:50 PM JST - 22nd April

Hitomi Shimatani is very beautiful, so much like a Japanese doll
jonnyboy at 09:48 AM JST - 23rd April

so much like a Japanese doll

is that supposed to be a compliment?
pointofview at 10:01 AM JST - 23rd April

Strange!
ZazoomZa at 06:09 PM JST - 23rd April

They look great together.
womanforwomen at 09:52 PM JST - 23rd April

ZazoomZa at 06:09 PM JST - 23rd April

They look great together.

You mean the threesome? Most ceratinly!!!
DentShop at 10:00 AM JST - 24th April

LoveUSA, you sound fairly bitter. You say there are sour grapes over a Gaijin not winning? If there are, its not evident on this board. You say he is in a humiliating situation - why would a Gaijin want that? Or a fake wedding for goodness sake? Lastly, it is far from a formal Christian ritual. For one thing, it is fake. Next, the actor wearing the stole is a fake too, since a real minister would never appear at a fake wedding.
kirakira25 at 02:08 PM JST - 27th April

know this is a fake ceremony, but quite honestly even when I go to a Japanese western style ceremony I am amazed how much of it is show and nothing else. One bride I saw last year was on STILTS so she could look taller under her skirt! She had two people helping her walk, neither of whom was her actual husband!

At our ceremony my husband wore traditional Japanese Hakama, I wore a western style dress. He recited his vows in English, I did mine in Japanese. We gave Japanese gifts to the British guests, and British gifts to the Japanese guests. The Brits thought it was a "lovely mix of two cultures", the Japanese thought it was "weird" - shame.