Robot Presides Over Wedding in Japan
Philippine Wedding News
18 May 2010

Here in the Philippines, the Family Code of the Philippines states who are recognized by law as solemnizing officers. These are judges, priests, rabbi, imam, pastors, consul generals, military officers, ship captains, and airplane chiefs. In the future, our lawmakers may want to consider adding one more to this list – a robot, specifically, the Japanese robot I-Fairy.

I-Fairy (center) presides over the wedding
of Tomohiro Shibata (L) and Satoko Inoue (R).
Photo from CrunchGear.com

In Tokyo, Japan, newlyweds Tomohiro Shibata and Satoko Inoue were the first couple who had their wedding presided by a robot called I-Fairy. The two exchanged vows last May 16, 2010 at a restaurant in Tokyo’s Hibiya Park in front of 50 guests, composed their family and friends. The two decided to have I-Fairy solemnize their wedding since it was through it that the two met each other.

The bride, Inoue, works for Kokoro, Ltd., the company that makes the I-Fairy, and her husband, Shibata, is a client of the company and a professor of robotics at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology in central Japan.

The wedding conductor, I-Fairy, is a four-foot (1.5 meter) tall seated robot that has colorful flashing eyes, plastic pigtails, and voice capability. It was able to preside over the wedding through a computer technician feeding the commands through a computer attached to the robot.

Initially, Kokoro, Ltd. created I-Fairy to be used in museum and exhibitions to direct visitors but with a new program and a flower headpiece, it became an instant solemnizing officer for a wedding.

The I-Fairy sells for about 6.3 million yen ($68,000 or roughly P3 million) and three are in use in Singapore, the U.S. and Japan.

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Kasal.com thanks the following sources for this article:

ABS-CBN News (Original Content from Reuters) 'I do' goes high-tech with Japan robot priest (Posted May 17, 2010) Retrieved May 17, 2010 from
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/lifestyle/05/17/10/i-do-goes-high-tech-japan-robot-priest

GMA News.tv (Orginal Content from Associated Press) 4-foot robot conducts wedding in Tokyo (Posted May 17, 2010) Retrieved May 17, 2010 from
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/191124/4-foot-robot-conducts-wedding-in-tokyo

Toto, Serkan, CrunchGear. Robot “I-Fairy” leads nuptials at wedding in Japan (Posted May 17, 2010) Retrieved May 17, 2010 from
http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/05/17/robot-i-fairy-leads-nuptials-at-wedding-in-japan-videos/