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  • Photograph of a Japanese woman with cupped hands wearing a traditional wedding kimono under an uchikake while on her head she dons a black wig and white silk tsuno kakushi or 'horn concealer'.
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Traditional Japanese Wedding Dress
A Japanese bride with cupped hands wears a traditional wedding kimono under an uchikake, while on her head she dons a black wig and white silk tsuno kakushi or ‘horn concealer’.
© Yves Ruben

Japan

Preparing to Step into a New Life

The colours worn by a bride at a traditional Shinto wedding have symbolic meaning. White, the colour of mourning in Japan, is worn by the bride to signify that she is symbolically dying to her family, while the red she wears signals that she will be reborn as a member of her husband’s family. The shoes worn by the bride can be pure white or they can include a hint of colour suggesting that a bright future awaits her as a wife.

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