ROYAL ROMANCE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 550, 31 December 1928, Page 10

ROYAL ROMANCE

PRINCE OF JAPAN WEDS BUSTERED COMMONER

SEVERELY SIMPLE CEREMONY

Prince Chichibu, heir-presumptive to the Imperial throne of Japan, broke all precedents of his Royal house in marrying a commoner, Miss Setsuko Matsudaira, the 19-year-old daughter of the Japanese Ambassa-dor-elect to Great Britain.

The new princess, a beautiful girl with bobbed hair, w'as born in Londou, and Prince Chichibu, who is the present Emperor’s brother, attended Oxford University. The marriage took place before the Imperial sanctuary at the palace in accordance with a ritual of great antiquity. It was a severely simple ceremony, personal in character, unadorned by any jewellery, which the ancient Shinto rites do not permit. The traditional thrice-three cups of Japanese wine were exchanged, the Prince and his bride pledging their troth. Then they worshipped before the shinden shrine dedicated to the Gods of Heaven and Earth, and later went to Koreiden, where the spirits of their ancestors are enshrined. The bride’s gown was cut in the traditional kimono style of Old Japan, and over her shoulders she wore a cape-like garment of light green, decorated with hollyhocks. Prince Chichibu was dressed in a black silk robe decorated with a flying crane in white. With this he wore a scarlet sash, silk trousers with figures in scarlet, and small hollyhocks, and an overskirt of silk decorated with white hailstones and a bird-nest figure. A second overskirt of scarlet silk completed his wedding outfit, except that on his head he wore an elaborate silk coronet bearing the Imperial chrysanthemum crest.

After the ceremonies. the royal couple proceeded to the Prince’s new palace for the wedding luncheon, returning later to the Imperial Palace to be formally received by the Emperor and Empress. A long series of banquets will follow, after which the presumptive future Emperor and his bride will take a short honeymoon trip.