The Flickr 花嫁 Image Generatr

Vintage photo from the (late?) 1910s depicting a couple on their wedding day.

She is dressed all in white with a veil and both a wreath and a sprig fastened to her dress with myrtle. Brides had been wearing myrtle since the late 18th century in Sweden harking back to classic ancient traditions, but it was especially popular when wearing a white wedding dress (many Swedish brides in the 19th century wore black, since it could then be used as a Sunday best-dress). In her hand she has a wedding bouquet with roses.

Her husband (I think we can assume this is after the wedding) is wearing a full dress suit (what is also known as 'white tie'). This was a form of formal dress that was much more common a hundred years ago than it is now - but it was still a sign of being rather well off, not something every man owned or wore even on their wedding day.

The photo has an unusually informal tone - they are posing for the camera, but at the same time it looks they are just interrupted in the doorway, like a snapshot of the moment.

No additional information available - the back of the photo is blank. It is probably taken in Sweden, though.

Wedding Procession

ⓒRebecca Bugge, All Rights Reserved
Do not use without permission.

A Shinto wedding procession at the Meiji shrine in Tokyo. The bridge and groom are under the red parasol and the two women in front of them, in identical red and white clothes, are mikos. The women dressed in dark, colourful kimonos are most likely family of the wedding couple. The woman in the more simple kimono, standing on the side, is not a guest but rather working and making sure everything is going as it should (and adjusting the bride's clothes when needed). Those to the far sides in the shot are tourists - because you cannot get married at one of the most popular shrines in Tokyo, and have your procession crossing the main courtyard, and not be the centre of attention.

The white hood of the bride is called a watabōshi (綿帽子), while she is dressed in a shiromuku (白無垢), a white over-kimono, denoting purity. The man is wearing is wearing the typical male dress for traditional formal occasions: a jacket called a haori (羽織) and hakama (袴), trousers you can see in circumstances like these, but also on some performers of Japanese martial arts such as kendo and iaidō.

A miko (巫女) is a young woman working at a Shinto shrine. The role has ancient traditions and in the beginning she was most likely a shaman but in modern Shinto her role is more institutionalized and includes doing ritual dances, participating in rituals, like weddings, but also more mundane tasks as selling talismans and souvenirs. Their traditional clothes include a red hakama (or sometimes a skirt), a white haori (kimono jacket) and red and/or white hair ornaments.

ⓒRebecca Bugge, All Rights Reserved
Do not use without permission.

Wedding procession at the Meiji shrine in Tokyo. The two men are kannushi and the women behind them are mikos. Then, under a red parasol, come the bride and groom. The woman adjusting the bride's dress is not one of the guests but a part of the service personnel, there to see that everything runs smoothly (hence why she is dressed much more demurely than the rest of the people).

The white hood of the bride is called a watabōshi (綿帽子), while she is dressed in a shiromuku (白無垢), a white over-kimono, denoting purity. The man is wearing is wearing the typical male dress for traditional formal occasions: a jacket called a haori (羽織) and hakama (袴), trousers you can see in circumstances like these, but also on some performers of Japanese martial arts such as kendo and iaidō.

Kannushi (神主 - also known as shinshoku, 神職) is someone who performs holy rites at and look after a Shinto shrine - kind of a Shinto shrine priest. To become one you have to study at an approved university or pass an exam - their position is usually inherited by their children (and although men are most common, women can become kannushi too). The head-gear they are wearing is an eboshi (烏帽子) and their white robes are knon as jōe (浄衣 - lit. clean clothes). They clothes actually hold no real symbolic significance, but reflects old court clothes. The stick, or baton, both men are holding is a shaku (笏), originally a part of a the formal dress of a nobleman.

A miko (巫女) is a young woman working at a Shinto shrine. The role has ancient traditions and in the beginning she was most likely a shaman but in modern Shinto her role is more institutionalized and includes doing ritual dances, participating in rituals, like weddings, but also more mundane tasks as selling talismans and souvenirs. Their traditional clothes include a red hakama (or sometimes a skirt), a white haori (kimono jacket) and red and/or white hair ornaments.

An early 20th century wedding photo of a quite fashionable couple - strikingly so considering their portrait was not taken in Stockholm or any other major Swedish town, but Boden. Boden was a village that became a town thanks to an important railway junction (mining was, and still is, an important industry in this part of Sweden) and Boden fortress, built in the early decades of the 20th century. But even so, in 1920 - which is later than this photo was taken - the town still had only some 6 000 inhabitants. And why would I say this is a spring wedding? She has tulips in her bouquet! So I might not be able to tell which year the photo was taken, but I can say it was late spring (or possibly early summer, depending on how cold the winter might have been).

The photographer was J.E. Harnesk - that is Jakob Elof Harnesk, born in 1871 and who worked as a photographer from the middle of the 1890s to 1927 when he died. The last name 'Harnesk', actually means 'cuirass' and sounds like a typical if old-fashioned last name for a soldier, but his father was not a soldier but a photographer himself.

Temple Zenkoji. Nagano. Visca els Nuvis!

新娘入門 雙喜
結婚する花嫁
Bride to get married

新娘入門 雙喜
結婚する花嫁
Bride to get married

新娘入門 雙喜
結婚する花嫁
Bride to get married

2021, 60 x 50 cm
Collage of Origami & Paper