Anniversaire Minatomirai Yokohama, Wedding chapel in Shinkō, Japan
Anniversaire Minatomirai Yokohama is a five-storey wedding venue with about 17,000 m² of floor space, opened on 16 February 2014 on a 30-year fixed-term lease in the Minatomirai 16th block. It holds two chapels, FOREST MAISON among trees and OCEAN VILLA on raised ground, plus seven banquet rooms, one with projection mapping on its walls. The exterior was revised to pale tones with glass and metal after a 2012 landscape dispute over the chapel tower.
The venue was planned for a July 2012 start and autumn 2013 opening, but a landscape dispute with the city's urban aesthetics council over the chapel tower's height and facade delayed construction to September 2012 and completion to November 2013. It opened on 16 February 2014 as the 14th Anniversaire chapel and Japan's largest wedding venue, on a 30-year fixed-term lease of a plot that once held a used-car facility.
The name Anniversaire means "birthday" in French, and the venue's design concept was revised to a "modern French arrangement" after the 2012 landscape dispute. Couples can choose between the tree-ringed FOREST MAISON chapel and the elevated OCEAN VILLA, then hold a pageant on the nearby Kishamichi Promenade, where passers-by in Minato Mirai join the celebration.
The venue is at 2-1-4 Shinkō, Naka-ku, Yokohama: about 7 minutes on foot from Minatomirai Station on the Minatomirai Line, or 8 minutes from JR Sakuragicho Station. The attached Anniversaire Café is open to non-guests, 11:00–22:00 daily, with 52 indoor and 84 terrace seats. Café visitors should use nearby public parking rather than the venue's reservation-only lot.
The site is held on a 30-year fixed-term lease rather than owned outright, so the building is planned as a long-term but not permanent structure. Before construction, the site held a temporary car dealership, Curtis, formerly Livedoor Auto. The neighbouring Cosmo World amusement park occupies a similar temporary plot awaiting redevelopment.
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