- Akira, 38, promised to make Lin, 44, the happiest woman in the world and spoke of his good fortune to have found her
- Thanks to couple’s long-standing history of modelling for Ralph Lauren, they both wore outfits from the label for the ceremony
Actress Lin Chi-ling and pop star Akira have finally held their wedding ceremony in Taiwan.
Five months after announcing their legal marriage, the Taiwanese star performed marriage rites with her partner, who is from Japan, at an ancestral hall linked to her mother's side of the family before a meal at the Art Museum in her father's home city of Tainan.
The couple kept affairs relatively intimate for a celebrity wedding, with just 100 guests invited to the ceremony due to space constraints within the museum, which was formerly a police station. To honour both parties' cultures, the food served at the dinner used ingredients from Taiwan and Japan. An after-party in the evening was held at the five-star hotel Silks Place Tainan.
Giving a speech at the hall, Akira, 38, reportedly promised to make Lin the happiest woman in the world and spoke of his good fortune to have found her. Meanwhile, Lin, 44, vowed they would brave life's challenges together.
Owing to the couple's long-standing history of modelling for Ralph Lauren, they both wore outfits from the label for the main ceremony. While the groom wore a tuxedo with a white bow tie and coattails, Lin's gown consisted of a simple skirt with a pearl overlay embellishing her neck and shoulders.
The couple underwent multiple outfit changes throughout the day, with Lin wearing dresses from Taiwanese designers, including a ball gown by wedding studio Sophia, a cheongsam-style lace outfit from Shiatzy Chen, and a flapper-style mini dress from Nicole and Felicia Couture, as well as a bejewelled dress, pair of shoes and cape by Jimmy Choo.
In a statement issued by her agency, Lin said she wanted to hold the wedding in Tainan "to share the same memories as my parents". Instead of traditional hongbao monetary gifts, the couple received items linked to traditional marriage rites, including oil, salt, wood, vinegar and tea, as well as silk bedsheets, dried longan and honey
Guests included TV hosts Dee Hsu, Mickey Huang and Kevin Tsai.
Lin and Akira will live in Japan and focus on starting a family and their charity commitments, The Straits Times reports. Addressing reporters who were crowded around the ceremony venue, Lin said they would "work hard" to start a family next year.
Akira, whose real name is Ryohei Kurosawa, is a member of the Japanese group Exile and was the first Asian man to model for Ralph Lauren in global campaigns. Lin was once dubbed Taiwan's number one supermodel and is one of the country's highest paid faces. She has turned her gaze towards philanthropy in recent years, having started her own children's charity.
The pair met in 2011 when they played a fictional couple in a theatre production in Tokyo, leading to Lin becoming a well-known face in Japan. In early June this year, the two made dual Instagram posts to announce their marriage, despite not being known to have dated beforehand. They filed a marriage application in Tokyo and completed formal procedures in Taiwan before heading to Los Angeles for their honeymoon.
Sunday's event was an opportunity for friends and family to join in the celebrations and wish the couple well in their life together. Posting a photo of herself posed with her husband outside a temple on Instagram, Lin simply captioned the image "Happy".
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