The ceremony opens with harae, ritual purification, performed by the officiating priest over the couple and the assembled families before the marriage proper begins, in keeping with the Shinto concern to approach the kami in a state free of impurity. The priest then makes an offering to the kami of the shrine, typically a tamagushi, a sprig of sacred sakaki wood hung with paper or cloth strips, presented on behalf of the couple to announce and seek blessing on the marriage.
The best known element to outside observers is san san kudo, three times three times nine, in which the bride and groom, and often their parents, share sips of sake from a set of three flat cups, each cup drunk from three times, a ritual pattern meant to bind the two families as well as the couple. A Shinto priest presides throughout, assisted by shrine maidens, miko, who perform a ceremonial dance during the rite in many shrines. Guests at a shinzen kekkon are traditionally limited to close family rather than the large receptions common at Western style Japanese weddings, which are typically held afterward as a separate secular event. The bride traditionally wears a white kimono, the shiromuku, or a more colorful furisode, and the priest recites a norito, a formal prayer addressed to the kami of the shrine announcing the union and asking their blessing on it, read in the archaic register reserved for Shinto liturgy rather than in ordinary spoken Japanese. Miko, shrine maidens, assist throughout and in many shrines perform a ceremonial dance, the kagura, as part of the rite, and the whole ceremony is generally brief, often complete within thirty minutes, in keeping with its origin as a solemn shrine rite rather than a social occasion in its own right.