The Shuugi bukuro, a special money envelope

The shuugi bukuro, or money envelope, is an envelope that is used to give money gift in Japan. They are the standard for weddings and funerals, but different envelopes are used and the ways to put the money in the envelope and to fold them are different, whether it’s for a wedding or a funeral. You can see that, as a foreigner, there are great risks to do a faux pas…

Here is what a shuugi bukuro looks like:

Inside the wedding shuugi bukuro, there is another simple envelope in which the money must be inserted; for weddings, the money must be inserted in a way that the face of the man on the bank note is towards the opening of the envelope:

For funerals, it’s the opposite!!!

Then, you write your name and address on the front side of that envelope and then insert it into the shuugi bukuro, again, in a very specific way, with the top part (A) inside the bottom part (B). For funerals, it’s the opposite! So, it’s really easy to make mistakes!

We received the one below from our very good friend, Rena, when we came back to Japan, as a wedding present! It’s so beautiful that I decided to keep it and frame it… I am probably doing a faux pas, there!

There are many different designs for the shuugi-bukuro, here are a few that I thought were nice:

And Japan would not be Japan if there wasn’t a Hello Kitty version!