Amid a sea of clouds near the summit of Mount Ontakesan, two dolls adorned in a white wedding dress and a tuxedo stood next to each other in a close embrace.

In August, a “wedding” was held on the mountain nine years after the eruption took a couple’s lives before they could marry. The bride and groom dolls who stood in their place seemed to be smiling.

On Sept. 27, 2014, Yuki Niwa, 24, and Yuki Tokoro, 26, both residents of Ichinomiya, Aichi Prefecture, were caught in the eruption on Mount Ontakesan, which straddles the borders of Nagano and Gifu prefectures.

The two, who were colleagues and lovers, were found four days after the eruption at a stone wall below a mountain hut near the summit. Their bodies were close together and covered in volcanic ash.

The worst volcanic disaster after World War II left 58 hikers dead and five missing.

The couple had planned on getting married. 

Niwa’s father, Kunio, had wanted to help them perform a Japanese wedding ritual called “san-san-kudo” (literally “three, three, nine”) in heaven.

In the ritual, the bride and groom take turns sipping from three cups. They sip three times from each sake cup, making for nine sips in total.

The year following the eruption, Kunio had prepared miniature items such as three flat cups and a sake pot, but he died at age 54 in 2016 without being able to fulfill his wish.

In July this year, the restrictions on entering the vicinity of the summit, which had been in place since the eruption, were relaxed.

“We want to make Niwa’s father’s wish come true,” Tokoro’s parents thought.

His father, Kiyokazu, 61, and mother, Kiyomi, 61, and Niwa’s mother Mayumi, 59, set out for the peak on Aug. 19.

It was the first time Mayumi trekked up the couple’s favorite hiking trail under a clear sky.

On the way up, she looked behind her and saw a sea of clouds.

“It’s beautiful,” Mayumi said.

She compared the view with a photo Niwa had taken from the summit 15 minutes before the eruption.

Out of breath, Mayumi recalled a conversation she used to have with her daughter, when she would consider mountain climbing for exercise, and her daughter would say she could never reach the summit.

Even that day, it felt to Mayumi as if Niwa was saying, “You better stop--it’s impossible for you.”

“I have to climb no matter what,” the mother thought.

However, as the weather deteriorated, the three could not reach the summit.

Following Kiyokazu’s suggestion, they decided to hold the wedding ceremony at the eighth station of the mountain.

They placed three cups and a sake pot on the tray, along with the dolls dressed in the white wedding dress and a tuxedo.

The attire, which is about one-fifth the actual size, took Mayumi seven years to complete, with several interruptions along the way.

“Yuki, are you watching?” Mayumi said.

Looking at the smiling bride and groom dolls, she asked to the sky, “I don’t know if you like the dress.

“Maybe she’s mad at me because I added frills,” she added.

The wedding ceremony lasted for about 30 minutes. Mayumi said she felt as if one more memory was added to the ones that had been frozen in time since the eruption.

She misses her daughter terribly.

“I want to hear Yuki’s voice again, but she won’t come back,” she said.

‘WHY ISN’T THIS REAL?’

On the other hand, Kiyokazu regretted not being able to fulfill Niwa’s father’s wish to have the ceremony at the couple’s final resting place.

On Sept. 9, Kiyokazu headed for the summit again with his three friends. He hung a picture of the late Kunio around his neck.

He held a wedding banquet, saying, “I brought everyone who cared about you two.”

He carried the couple’s portraits, letters and other items that had been sent to him after the eruption. He laid them out at their final resting place.

Nine years after the eruption, the wedding ceremony and banquet were finally held.

Kiyokazu looked relieved, but he said he still feels pain in his heart at the question, “Why isn’t this for real?”

Seeing small children on the street makes him wonder if the couple would have had a family of their own by now.

“When I see children asking for gifts from their grandparents, I think it could have been the same for us,” he said, thinking of the warm moments that might have been.

“I wonder what they are doing up there in the sky,” he said.