Machine with flashing eyes and plastic pigtails presides over wedding of Kokoro employee and robotics professor

Almost everyone stood when the bride walked down the aisle in her white gown, but not the wedding conductor, because she was bolted to her chair.

The nuptials at this ceremony were led by I-Fairy, a 4ft seated robot with flashing eyes and plastic pigtails. The wedding today was the first to be led by a robot, according to the manufacturer, Kokoro.

"Please lift the bride's veil," the robot said in a tinny voice, waving its arms in the air as the newlyweds kissed in front of about 50 guests.

The ceremony took place at a restaurant in Hibiya Park, central Tokyo. The I-Fairy wore a wreath of flowers, and wires led out from beneath it to a black curtain nearby where a man crouched and clicked commands into a computer.

Japan has one of the most advanced robotics industries in the world, with the government actively supporting the field for future growth. Industrial models in factories are now standard, and recently companies have been making a push to inject robots into everyday life.

Honda, the car manufacturer involved in artificial intelligence research, already makes a walking child-shaped robot, and other firms have developed them to entertain the elderly or play baseball.

Kokoro, whose corporate goal is to "touch the hearts of the people", makes giant dinosaur robots for exhibitions and lifelike android models that can smile and laugh.

Should a marriage proposal be an overblown romantic gesture or a spur-of-the-moment leap of faith? In the first of a new series about getting married, share your top tips on popping the question

I used to love reading Liz Jones's Wedding Planner column, if only for the car crash element of wondering why on earth these two people were marrying each other. Sadly, time proved that instinct to be right. I say sadly because I think that most people thinking of getting married truly believe that it is for life, despite the statistics.

So, welcome to wedding season: where thousands of soon-to-be-married couples pray for sunshine at the weekend; where friends and relations prepare to travel up and down the country, some of them dozens of times; where the wedding magazines gain a sudden prominence on the newsstands.

But if you are a bloke, you may be forgiven for thinking that all of this doesn't have much to do with you. Sure, there will be stag weekends. And maybe morning suit hire. And turning up on the day and getting wasted. But the build-up and hype is dominated by women. A sweeping generalisation, maybe, but there's some truth in it.

So over the next few weeks I'd like to take us on a journey: a blokes' guide to weddings. I have more than a few thoughts of my own: married once, best man three times, an usher half a dozen more and a guest more times than I can count. (And I used to work in a pub that had at least one wedding per weekend all year round). But more than that I'd like to share your experiences: top tips, dos and don'ts, salutary lessons, funny stories, maybe even some sad ones too.

And having categorised this as a blog for blokes, that doesn't mean that I just want advice and thoughts from men, for I think that we would also learn much from female input.

Let's begin at the beginning: the proposal.