Reception & Speeches

RECEPTION & SPEECHES

Reception ：
After the photos been taken, we have received our guests outside of the marquee. Once everyone has seated, two of us entered the marquee and were received by warm aplause. Then the reception started.

Menu

Wine	"KUMARA" from South Africa ( Carbernet Sauvignon-Shiraz / Chardonnay )
Starter	"Tomato and Feta Cheese Salad" or "Avocado and Prawns"
Main Course	"Rack of Lamb" served with"Baby Potatoes" and "Seasonal Vegetables"
Sweets	"Summer Fruit Compote" or "Tiramisu"
Follow Ups	"Selection of cheese and Biscuits" served with "Celery and Grapes" "Coffee" and "Mints"
Bubbles	BRUT 『BREDON』

Speeches
We have asked Tim's father to make a speech for the toast. Following him, Miho's mother made her speech and finally Tim made his speech to thank all our guests.

Joe Bradley's Address

Fellow guests.

　　My name is Joe Bradley and I am Tim's Father. As Jano has explained this is not a traditional wedding ceremony. The truth is that it is the third event - possibly the last such - to mark Tim and Miho's marriage. The first was the legal documentation at the Word Office in Nagoya that took place just over two years ago. The second not so far mentioned, was the occasion when they both appeared and were photographed in Japanese wedding array - Miho looking incredibly beautiful and very serious and Tim looking very jolly and rather like a member of the "gentlemen of Japan" chorus in the famous Gilbert and Sullivan opera. And so to today's happy event.

　　 The reason I didn't begin my address with a "welcome" was because that is really Tim and Miho's prerogative - they are very much your host and hostess today. Indeed they have put an enormous amount of work and almost all their available resources into preparing for today's wedding celebration. Even the paper on which your wedding invitation was printed was hand made by them.

　　 We are just wedding guests like you - my wife, Diana, joins me in saying what a joy it is to meet in person Miho's relations and friends who, up until now, we have known only by name. We know how good and kind they have been to Miho, and to Tim, too, once he appeared amongst them. We hope they will enjoy meeting those friends and relations of Tim who have had a formative influence on his upbringing and, of course, we are happy to see them here today. It is good also that some of Tim's university friends are with us. They restore the balance of youth and it would be nice to feel that amongst them will be some who will be lifelong friends of Tim and Miho.

　　 The fact that today is a wedding celebration and not a formal wedding has allowed Tim and Miho to excuse us from some of the extremer rigorous of "21st Century Wedding Etiquette." How nice to be able to wear comfortable clothes on a summer's day like today! From my point of vies - and perhaps yours - the downside is that I have been asked to make a speech, something that the father of the bridegroom is normally excused. Am I really being trusted not to reveal those secrets of Tim's earlier days that he would really prefer remained hidden? We shall See!

　　 Those of you who have struggled to locate Eaton-under-Haywood on the map and perhaps also to find your way here may have wondered a bit at the choice of venue. Well, as you now can see, it is a rather splendid spot. Behind us stretches the treed escarpment of Wenlock Edge. In geological times this was at one stage an extensive barrier of coral set in a tropical sea. Now it is one of England's finest wildlife settings. Indeed if we have a gatecrasher here today I would expect he or she would be an English Nature warden intent on ensuring that a dormouse hunt was not a part of the day's proceedings. Nestling among the trees across the road is the church of St. Edith of Wilton - she was an Anglo-Saxon saint. The oldest part of the church (the nave) is Norman but the chancel is only 800 years old. The lectern and pulpit were replaced a mere 400 years ago. If this church could tell its tale it would speak of a community of several hundred people living here in Ape Dale. But about 150 years ago there occurred the first communications revolution - the railway, only a couple of hundred yards away from us here today, arrived on the scene. And people could send letters anywhere in the Kingdom for only a penny. However the effect of this was that generations who had lived out their lives in this community saw their sons and daughters dispense throughout the land. It was bad news for Eaton but, arguably, good news for the descendants of those who left who are now healthier, wealthier and leading fuller lives than their forebears. No longer needed, the railway closed 50 years ago. Something also seems since to have happened to the penny post!

　　 Now we have a new communications revolution exemplified by the airliner and the internet. As people were liberated from their parish boundaries so now national boundaries do not stand in their way. Are Tim and Miho among the first beneficiaries of this new freedom? Incidentally the choice of Eaton Manor as today's venue was not made by Diana and me, who live 10 miles away, but by Tim and Miho surfing the internet in Japan. Are we the two score of us here today from Europe, Asia and America, the widest-drawn International gathering that Eaton-under-Haywood has ever seen? - I suspect we may be.

　　 I risk boring you with my theories on the subject of social history. How did Tim and Miho meet you would probably prefer to know. As background I need to tell you that Tim has always had lots of energy and has always relished a challenge. Amongst many vignettes of his early life I well remember a tiny boy swimming his first length of the swimming pool and, surprisingly, receiving a standing ovation from the grown ups in the viewing gallery for the determination he showed. Fast forward to a misty grey December day on the rugger field at Bryanston when, against a strong and hitherto unbeaten side, the Bruton XV with Tim playing his part held on to win by the narrowest of margins. Amongst his many enthusiasm has been marathon running which first came to successful fruition whilst at Leeds University - in the week he was taking his finals! However, pre-eminent amongst Tim's interests has always been climbing and the mountains. Boyhood holidays at Martindale in the Lake District (repeated each year by popular request) taught him the joys of fell walking. A chance recommendation saw him take a rock climbing course in Snowdonia. And then, post-graduate, in pursuit of another enthusiasm, he went off for a year in Canada where he found work in Vancouver in a shop selling equipment and clothing for climbing and outdoor pursuits. One day, when he rang home, he announced casually that he and a few buddies planned to climb Mt. McKinley in Alaska - the highest mountain in North America. This caused great alarm in the Bradley household where it was felt that a hike up Helvellyn and a couple of weeks on rock faces in North Wales were insufficient grounding for an assault on a mountain as challenging as many a Himalayan peak. How to persuade Tim against such a venture without invoking a determined resolve on his part to prove his manhood to his over-protected parents? In the even an offer was made to underwrite a proper 3 month climbing course run by Yamnuska Inc. in the Canadian Rockies. At much the same time a Japanese girl who had spent a number of her educational years studying in the USA saw and advert for the same course and decided to apply. And so it was that Tim and Miho found themselves in the same team learning advanced climbing skills.

　　 We gathered that something was afoot from telephone calls in which mention was made of Miho, from the fact that they decided to spend time together after the course and in particular to visit Bill and Sue - Miho's "American Dad and Mom" from student days. Eventually Tim and Miho arrived at our Bristol home and proudly announced their engagement.

　　 We had Miho with us for only a week before she had to leave for Japan. However even in that short time her kindness, her good nature and her lively personality came over clearly and we felt that we would be happy to take her to our hearts as our new daughter-in-law. Whether it was these qualities that endeared her to Tim we cannot know. Jano seems to suggest that reliability with the climbing rope on a rock face in sub-zero Canadian winter temperatures played its part. Homely skills such as the deft handling of a canoe in white waters or agility in climbing a frozen waterfall are nowadays quite hard to find.

　　 Miho's fluency in idiomatic English (and American) makes life easy for us. Tim aspires to spoken Japanese - he seems to have bridged any cultural divide whilst teaching English as a foreign language to Japanese students if their generously worded tributes to him on departure are true guide. Both Diana and I have visited Japan - she as a tourist in the 1960's and I as a serviceman in the Korean War a decade earlier. In fact, Tim's great grandfather worked in Japan in the 1890's installing cotton mill machinery there - in those days British technology was valued in Japan rather than the reverse as is the case nowadays.

　　 One final picture of Tim's early years comes to mind - a little boy going out to play in the back garden singing as he went "I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy" - music indeed to the ears of any parent. In fact, although he has lived through some unhappy times, Tim has generally been of a happy nature. I am sure he is happy today and that Miho shares that happiness. Long may that continue. Let us now drink a toast to their happiness together - Tim and Miho - a long and happy marriage.

Sachiko Hiraiwa's Address

　　My Name is Sachiko Hiraiwa and I am Miho's mother. There is not much more to say after Tim's father's great speech, but I would like to thank you all for gathering for Tim and Miho.

　　Everything of Tim's life in Japan for two years was new to him. There, because Tim didn't understand much Japanese, Miho seemed eager to do everything, from work to everyday life. However, when I met them after 2 and a half months, after their arrival in England, Miho was extremely relaxed as if she were the daughter of Bradley household, and Tim has turned into a very dependable son to me.

　　Although Miho is my second daughter, she always has been prompt and has done everything instead of her elder sister. When she was 9 years old, she would ask for violin on her birthday and Christmas present, and we had her start taking violin lessons. By the time she was 15 years old, she has moved on to viola and has taken the examination for entering the music school. However, her passion for violin has burned out by then and she went to the regular high school.

　　 When she was 17 year old, there was an opportunity to become an exchange student. Just like the time she wanted to learn violin, believing in her ability action and research on her own, we let her fly to America. Bill, Sue and other Fuller family members were the people who hosted Miho. From then on, my role of being natural (Japanese) mother has faded and Fullers had been very kind to her, treating her just like their own daughter. I am very grateful of their kindness!

　　 Even when she went to America as a 17-year-old girl, she said "I don't want to come back to Japan." I also believed that she was "A girl who is capable of making her own special life" and she would be leaving the country in some way after coming back from America. As we have expected, she came to us one day saying "I'm going to Canada!"

　　 She's never been good with long distance running, and hardly ever climbed mountain before. Probably her experience of the trekking on Mt. Hakuba with me the year before had fascinated her. "I want to do it when I have enough energy so spare" said she and off to Canadian Rockies after saving enough money to support her for 6 months.

　　 Mt. Hakuba was the mountain she has ever climbed in full-dress. Tim and Miho had climbed it again after he arrived to Japan, and I'm assuming that that was their first honeymoon!

　　 If Miho did succeed in entering her music school, she'd never met her neither American family nor Tim. Going back some time, I had a chance to move to England some 40 years ago but my father did not let me go because the news of "bad smog of England (London)" has broken in Japan.

　　 When they were touring me around the Lake District last week, I told Miho about this story. Miho then said "You finally made it!" but Tim said "I'm glad that you did not come to England 40 years ago." His reason was that if I came to England 40 years ago, he would never have met Miho.

　　 I think Miho had received 3 times more happiness from people around her. Half of her life had been supported by her American family, and her new life from now on will be supported by her English family. Please warmly watch over their lives, even though they don't know where to settle yet in the whole wide world.

　　 Although　Tim being too nice and Miho being too stubborn, I hope that they remember that they are "Meant to be with each other" and the blessing of God and the people around them. Happy life together!

Tim's Address

Hello!

　　 I haven't written anything down for my speech because it was believed that I would not be able to read what I have written by this time. I would like to take this opportunity, not only to thank you all for making such an effort to come to our wedding, but also thank you for helping us reach this stage in our lives. As we've said in our invitation, we could not have got here without your support.

　　 It is fantastic to see so many of our friends and family here with us today. And we want you all to have fun and enjoyable time this evening.

Thank you all for everything you have done for us. Please enjoy this evening!

** The groom now wishes he had written his speech down for he can only remember a little of it...

Cake Cut

After Tim has made his address, we cut our wedding cake. Our wedding cake, in the shape of "snowy mountain," was set on the sloped table and was in great danger of completely avalanching. We managed to cut our cake before it happened and our caterer cut it to serve our guests.

First Dance

A while after our cake cutting, we danced our "first dance." We chose "Grow Old With You" from the motion picture "The Wedding Singer."

Party

Once our first dance was over, the party went on until midnight. It is difficult to explain by words, so please check the images on this page!