When they have exchanged cups, the bride and the bridegroom retire and change their dresses. They then enter the room where the wedding guests are being entertained. They receive their congratulations and sit with them for a while. They are expected to eat and drink with them; but they retire before long to the bridal chamber. The go-between and his wife assist them and come down afterwards to report to the assembled guests that the happy couple have been put to bed. The guests then take their departure shortly after this announcement. Next morning the bride is up betimes to send a messenger to her father to announce that the wedding has taken place without a hitch; and the father too, before the arrival of the messenger, sends to ask after the welfare of his daughter and son-in-law. He sends presents to the members of his daughter’s new home. She receives the congratulations of her friends. On the following day the friends and relatives and their wives are invited to the bridegroom’s house, when the dresses and other articles brought by the bride are exhibited. The guests are entertained often till very late at night. The bridegroom sends rice-cakes to his father-in-law who distributes them among his friends and relatives. On the fourth day after the marriage, the bride goes to her father’s house and stays there a day or two. After her return to her husband, her father invites the young couple and the friends and relatives of both families to dinner. This gathering is called “the unbending of the knees,” because the guests are expected to unbend themselves and stretch their knees and legs which they kept rigidly bent during the marriage ceremony and subsequent parties. They sing and dance and enjoy themselves without constraint. This is the last of the gatherings connected with the marriage. During all these ceremonies the exchange of presents is interminable so that a marriage in the regular style is very expensive, and people of moderate means curtail the proceedings as much as possible. Some even have weddings in a tea-house, especially if their own houses are not large enough to seat all the invited guests. It has become the fashion of late to hold the wedding ceremony in a shrine in imitation of the Christian marriage service at church. [Illustration: THE BRIDE’S CABINETS. (FROM A PICTURE BY SUKENOBU)]