Mark Kelly is originally from Lancashire in England. He has been living on Japan for six years and, at the weekend, he is a fake priest.

“I was living in Sapporo, studying Japanese, and I needed the money. It’s far better paid than teaching in a language school,” he told the BBC.

“Being a fake priest is big business in Japan - I’ve done a TV commercial for one company,” he added. “In Sapporo, there are five agencies employing about 20 fake priests. In a city like Tokyo, there must be hundreds.”

The fake Western priests are employed at Western-style weddings to give a performance and add to the atmosphere.

These are not legal ceremonies - the couples also have to make a trip to the local registrar.

“In the past almost all weddings in Japan were Shinto, but in the last few years Western-style weddings have appeared and become very popular,” said one Japanese priest.

Only 1.4 percent of Japan’s 127 million people are Christians, but Christian-style ceremonies now account for three-quarters of Japanese weddings.

To meet market demand, bridal companies in recent years have largely dispensed with the niceties of providing a pastor with a seminary education, keeping the requirements simple: a man from an English-speaking country who will show up on time, remember his lines, not mix up names and perform the ceremony in 20 minutes.

From a small beginning a few years ago, the Western wedding “priest” has suddenly become an established part of modern Japan’s cultural tableau.

The lure of easy money has prompted hundreds of foreign men to respond to newspaper advertisements here, like the one that read: “North Americans, Europeans wanted to conduct wedding ceremonies.”

“Now all the hotels have chapels with someone dressed up as a priest,” said William Grimm, a Maryknoll priest who edits the Catholic Weekly of Japan.

“The companies like the nonreligious guy who just follows the script,” said Mike Clark, a Japanese language student who performed weddings before moving home to Canada last fall.

The boom in what some Japanese magazines call “foreign fake pastors” speaks volumes about modern Japan’s attachment to appearances and its smorgasbord approach to religion.

Japanese often choose Shintoism for childhood age ceremonies, Christianity for weddings and Buddhism for funerals.

“At the hotel where I work, there is a Christian chapel next to a Shinto chapel. The Christian chapel is always in use, but the Shinto chapel is being used as a storeroom,” Mr Kelly said.

The fake Western priests are used to create an authentic Christian feel.

“There are Japanese priests, but most couples are trying to re-create a European wedding, so overwhelmingly ask for a foreign priest,” said Momo, who works at Morito Ishi Kyokai (forest and stone) chapel.

Western-style chapels are often found in unexpected places. Morito Ishi Kyokai is on the sixth floor of a supermarket in Sapporo.

As you walk between sushi restaurants, cake shops and noodle bars, a grey plastic stone grotto decked in plastic flowers and fairy lights suddenly appears.

There are plastic cherubs and little fountains inside. “It is designed in the style of mid-century stone churches in Europe,” said Momo.

Kelly worked at the chapel when it first opened. “Because it was in a shopping centre, you got the sounds of vegetables on special offer,” he said. “It’s very popular because it’s still new,” added Momo. Omi Junko plays the flute in a club and comes to the chapel to practise.

“I like to come here. It has a good atmosphere because it is a church,” she said.

The fake priests in Japan sometimes have to deal with difficult situations.

“Once I was holding a ceremony and an old man dressed head to toe in military uniform hobbled to the front and fell asleep,” said Kelly.

“Halfway through the service, he opened his eyes and I think he was back in Burma or Thailand. He looked straight at me, stood up and started unsheathing his rifle. Fortunately he was pretty slow and his relatives stopped him.”

Kelly has often presided over ceremonies where the bride is pregnant.

“It is common. Once, the bride vomited on me and then fainted. It wasn’t very romantic,” he said. Another difficulty is meeting genuine Japanese priests.

“We do occasionally bump into the real thing. They are very much against us, but there are not enough genuine Japanese priests to meet the demand” he said.