Princess Sayako, the only daughter of Emperor Akihito of Japan, today gave up a cosseted life of ancient privilege to marry a bureaucrat who works for the Tokyo city government.

In a short, humble ceremony at the Imperial Hotel, a popular venue for ordinary Japanese weddings, Sayako, known as Princess Nori, married Yoshiki Kuroda, a mid-level city employee, and became a commoner.

The wedding of Princess Sayako, the first daughter of an emperor to marry for 45 years, was a conspicuously austere event, as if to reflect her life to come: paying taxes in a Tokyo apartment, learning to drive, the supermarket run.

As Sayako made her way from the Imperial Palace in an official black car, around 6,000 well-wishers waved flags, cheered and took photographs of her last journey as a princess.

"The princess was so beautiful, she was just like a cherry blossom," said Michiyo Tanimura, who traveled from Gifu, 170 miles west of Tokyo, to see the event. "It’s like someone above the clouds is coming closer to ordinary people like us."

Only 31 guests, including Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, were invited to the Shinto wedding of Mr and Mrs Kuroda. The bride wore a simple white dress and pearls before changing into a beige kimono for the reception, a French lunch of lobster and caviar, roasted lamb in prosciutto and caramel-vanilla sorbet for 120 guests.

The couple were toasted by the Governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, who is Mr Kuroda's boss. "Marriage is kind of a gamble," he said. "I hope not only all of us gathering here today but all Tokyo residents and Japanese citizens can share the dividend of the couple’s gamble."

In a statement released to the press, Sayako recounted her last embrace with the Empress, who "hugged me tightly and told me ‘Everything’s going to be OK,’ many times" before giving a short news conference.

"I want to learn various new things and I look forward to a new life as a member of the Kuroda family, while treasuring in my heart the life I have led up until now with their majesties and my family," she told reporters in a briefing that was carried live by all six Japanese broadcasting networks.

After the ceremony, Richard Lloyd Parry, Tokyo correspondent for The Times, said: "It was obvious the Imperial Family was bending over backwards to make the wedding informal and inconspicuous." Much of the television coverage had dwelt on Sayako's separation from her mother and father, to whom she is extremely close.

Sayako met Mr Kuroda, who earns around £35,000 a year in the urban planning department of the Tokyo city government, at a tennis match organised by her brother, Prince Akishino, two years ago. The couple had known each other as children but had lost touch.

To prepare for her new life as a tax-paying, surname-bearing member of the ordinary Japanese population, Sayako, 36, has been practising shopping in supermarkets and cooking. She has given up her part-time job as a researcher at an ornithology centre in Chiba, near Tokyo.

Her fall will be cushioned by a dowry of £750,000, given by the state to ensure that she "retains a decency appropriate to her birth".

Today's wedding and Sayako's dramatic change of status - she is the first member of the Imperial Family to marry a commoner since the 1960s - took place as the Japanese government was considering changing the law that governs the role of women in the royal family.

A law passed in 1947 currently prevents women from ascending to the Chrysanthemum Throne and from retaining their royal name upon marriage. But Japan’s Imperial Family has not had a male baby since the 1960s, and there is no direct male heir to the throne.

Japan has had eight female emperors in the last 1,500 years and opinion polls show firm, widespread support for letting women reign.

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