Wedding days can be the happiest time of one’s life. They can also be a giant ball of stress that feels like it’s rolling down a hill like an avalanche. For 180 couples in Japan, that avalanche feeling must have skyrocketed this month when they learned their weddings were in jeopardy.
Hotel Gajoen (雅叙園; gajouen) in Tokyo’s Meguro City made the shock announcement a few days ago, according to NHK. The hotel suddenly declared that it would close at the end of September and that all weddings scheduled from October 2025 onward would be summarily canceled.
The reason? Gajoen says their contract with their current building has expired. The hotel continued booking weddings even though it didn’t have a new contract in place. In letters to customers, the company chalked the closure up to “remodeling.”
Gajoen says it will refund customers’ 200,000 yen (USD $1,340) application fees and give them 100,000 yen ($670) as an inconvenience fee.
The hotel has operated in Tokyo since 1928, moving from its humble beginnings as a luxury restaurant to its current location in Meguro. It was Japan’s first-ever integrated hotel and wedding resort.
Despite officiating over 230,000 weddings, the hotel fell on hard times in 2002 and entered bankruptcy. In January, a Canadian investment firm took a controlling interest in the business.
Tokyo’s governor offers to help
The cancellations mean that couples need to scramble to either move their weddings or find new venues.
Gajoen says it’ll accommodate customers who want to move their weddings up to September, providing benefits such as free clothing rentals. However, many say moving their dates is impossible, as their guests have already blocked the dates and they’ve booked arrangements with other vendors.
The situation has brought an offer of help from Tokyo’s governor, Koike Yuriko. Koike says her government will work with couples to make metropolitan facilities, such as the Tokyo Metropolitan Building’s Observatory, available for couples displaced from Gajoen.
Koike has been a constant champion of programs that encourage marriage as a means of counteracting population decline in Japan. The metropolis, for example, has its own dating app to help singles find that special someone.
Couples might not like the idea of swapping out the renowned and gorgeous Gaojen for a government-owned facility. However, with October barreling down on their weddings, many might feel they don’t have a choice.
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