Japan`s Princess Sayako has lost her royal status after she married commoner Yoshiki Kuroda, in a ceremony in Tokyo.

Thousands of well-wishers lined the streets between the royal palace and the city hotel where the half-hour marriage rite took place.

Wearing a Western-style white dress and pearls, the princess sipped sake rice wine with her bureaucrat husband.

Marriage to Mr Kuroda, 40, means Princess Sayako loses her title and will have to adjust to a new lifestyle.

The ceremony, which took place in Tokyo`s plush Imperial Hotel, was an informal affair by royal standards.

"The princess was so beautiful, she was just like a cherry blossom," said bystander Michiyo Tanimura.

"It`s like someone above the clouds is coming closer to ordinary people like us," she told the Associated Press.

About 30 people attended the ceremony, and some 120 guests attended the reception, where they dined on a French-style menu including lobster and caviar jelly and caramel-vanilla sorbet with chestnut creme brulee.

The princess had said her formal farewells to the imperial family at the weekend. She is Emperor Akihito`s only daughter and becomes the first princess to abandon her title in 45 years.

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