Weekend Beat/ CULTURE & MORE: Hospitality: Every day is a big day for a wedding planner

BY KAZUKO IDE, CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Suddenly, a red carpet was unfurled, stretching from the reception area to the chapel. The lobby swelled with rhythm and blues music. The bride and groom appeared and slowly walked toward the chapel. Everyone--family, friends and complete strangers--cheered.

Maiko Suzuki, left, helps Mutsumi Niide prepare for her wedding banquet.(Takahiro Yanai/ Staff photographer)

The scene left an indelible impression on a college girl standing by, watching with eyes wide, as the romantic scene played out at a resort hotel in Okinawa.

With her career choice decided in that one moment, Maiko Suzuki went straight into the wedding industry after graduating from college.

Today, Suzuki, 26, works as a wedding planner at the Prince Park Tower Tokyo, a flagship of the Tokyo-based Prince Hotels group. The hotel opened in Shiba Park, near Tokyo Tower, in April 2005.

"The best part of my job is to be able to see the bride in her most beautiful moment," Suzuki said. This elation erases whatever difficulties may have arisen during the preparation period, added the soft-spoken wedding planner.

"The wedding is an extremely important day for the couple, and the bride and the groom always have their opinions on how things should go," Suzuki said. On the job, she's seen couples argue over many things during pre-wedding meetings, she said.

She added that since money is involved, her clients also try to strike a balance between their wishes and a budget. A typical wedding at the Prince Park Tower Tokyo costs about 4.5 million yen, including a ceremony and a banquet for 90 guests, according to the hotel.

A wedding planner's job is often described as bringing a couple's ideas to life; giving shape to their desires.

"When we first meet, I ask the couple what sort of banquet they have in mind. Some have a list of dreams they hope to realize, while others say that all they want is for the guests to have a relaxing day," Suzuki said.

Suzuki spends about eight months preparing for a wedding, meeting four or five times on the average with the couple, sometimes accompanied by their family members.

The couple's desires set the tone for the wedding. Suzuki shares this information with other needed specialists, including the chefs, the florist and the wardrobe people.

Each year, the Prince Park Tower Tokyo's 15-member bridal team handles 380 to 400 weddings.

Suzuki takes care of about 50 weddings a year, meaning she works with many couples simultaneously. On a weekday, she spends the morning attending in-house meetings or responding to a nearly constant flow of e-mails from her clients. She devotes her afternoons to meetings with couples.

"Although my hours are usually from 9:30 to 5, I sometimes work until 10 or 11," Suzuki said. Out of necessity, she often meets with clients outside her normal working hours.

Many of the couples who choose the Prince Park Tower Tokyo are in their late 20s to early 30s and have already attended several weddings as guests.

"They want to do something different during their banquet or incorporate ideas that will entertain the guests," she says. This may take the form of a wedding cake in the shape of Tokyo Tower or the newlyweds playing a duet on the piano.

Suzuki, who graduated from Daito Bunka University with a major in English, joined the bridal section of nearby Tokyo Prince Hotel in 2004. She was transferred to her current post a year later. She feels that it takes at least three years to become a fully qualified wedding planner--someone able to grasp the overall picture and "give thought to the couple's background and the people around them," instead of just dealing with the immediate task at hand.

In recent years, wedding planner as a possible career choice has attracted more attention in Japan.

Suzuki believes that this rise in the popularity of the profession may be because the job allows "women to work fully, not as assistants" to a man.

She loves her job, but confessed that it is more physically demanding than she'd expected.

Asked if wedding planning would work as a lifetime career, Suzuki, who is single, paused for a moment, and said: "Actually, that might be difficult. Because the hours are long, you would need your partner to understand." Nonetheless, four of her female colleagues are married.

On a balmy Saturday earlier this month, Suzuki was constantly on the move as she helped two of her client couples tie the knot. Eight weddings were held at the hotel that day.

One of Suzuki's couples, Mutsumi and Yasuto Niide, both in their late 20s, chose to hold a Shinto ceremony.

"I decided on a kimono because I wanted to wear the white uchikake (overgarment) my older sister wore at her wedding," Mutsumi said.

The couple and Suzuki held several meetings over a span of six months.

"I was glad we were able to work with the same wedding planner all the way through," the bride said, as two beauticians worked on her hair in the makeup room and helped her change overgarments before the banquet.

She added that she'd read in bridal magazines of problems when wedding planners were changed in the middle of the preparation period.

As Niide waited for his bride, Suzuki said, "Nothing should go wrong on a wedding day." Yet the unexpected--mechanical failures or the small nephew who won't stop crying--inevitably occur.

"How you recover from such situations is the key," she said.

The bride was finally ready, and she joined her husband and headed to the banquet hall, where their families and friends waited. The newlyweds took their assigned place at an entrance. Waiters opened the door, the music started and the couple stepped into the darkened room.

The Niides looked beautiful under the spotlight. Suzuki's eyes were slightly red. She smiled and quickly walked away--ready to help her next couple through what she hoped would be one of the most memorable days of their lives.

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The Prince Park Tower Tokyo opened in April 2005 in Tokyo's Minato Ward. The 33-story hotel is one of 47 hotels in Japan and abroad that are operated by Prince Hotels Inc., which is part of the Seibu group.

In addition to the Shinto hall, the hotel has the Green/Nature Chapel, the outdoor Garden Chapel and the Sky Chapel on the 33rd floor. Seventeen banquet halls of various sizes are used for wedding banquets and conferences.

About 70 percent of the couples choose to have a Christian-style ceremony; the rest opt for a Shinto nuptial or a non-religious ceremony held in front of their guests.

The rates for the 673 guest rooms range from 34,000 yen for a twin room to 980,000 yen for a suite, including consumption tax and service charge. The hotel offers a women-only floor on the 28th floor.

The hotel is a two-minute walk from Akabanebashi subway station.(IHT/Asahi: March 29,2008)