Here comes the bride....Korean wedding!

I attended my first Korean wedding this past Saturday and it was definitely an experience. It was the wedding of my Korean co-worker Denise. Her and her fiance (now husband) have been together for over 10 years. All of the foreigners at my school were invited and luckily the school provided us a shuttle bus to take us and some other Korean staff to the wedding as we had no clue where it was. The wedding started at 12:30 so we all met up around 11am to get on the bus. I wasn't quite sure what to wear to the wedding and I was told two different things. One of my co-workers who has been to several Korean weddings told me that you can dress casual and it doesn't really matter. Someone else told me that you should dress pretty nice. So I went with black slacks and a nice top. I really don't have a lot of nice things with me in Korea as the whole point of coming here was to be able to wear jeans and t-shirts and Toms all day everyday!

Anyway, we arrived at the wedding hall which is exactly that. It's a giant building with multiple floors with multiple weddings happening all day. There was a sign up that listed out all the weddings and they were all 2 hours a part. Koreans are all business all the time.

For Korean wedding gifts all you give is money. They had special envelopes already there for you to put the money in and write your name and special note on the side. Apparently you can only give odd amounts starting at 30,000won up to however much you want to give, because even amounts are consider superstitious. You give an amount of money based on how close you are to the couple. Therefore, my cheapbutt only gave 30,000won which was the consensus among all the foreign staff so I didn't feel too bad.

The wedding ceremony only lasted about 30 minutes. It was pretty quick and to the point. We all sang a song (well I didn't because it was in Korean, I just mumbled sounds) and the priest read from the Bible. Then the bride and groom read their 'vows'. This part was somewhat disturbing to me because it felt very stiff and not loving, but I think it's just how things are done in Korea. The bride and groom each held up a piece of paper for each other to read off of and they both spoke in such a monotone fashion that it felt like you were at a military event or something like it. Then there was a Korean singer who sang the 'first dance' song minus the dancing. The bride and groom both turned and faced the singer and stood completely still during the entire song. Then it was over.

Millions of photos were taken after the ceremony as well as during. There was constantly a 'helper' woman following the bride around and fixing her veil, her dress, her hair, etc. Every photo was so staged. They don't like candid photos apparently. Also instead of throwing the bouquet to all the unmarried women at the event, the bride picks one woman who is next in line to get married and they stage a photo of the bride 'throwing' the bouquet to her. There's also superstition around this that if you are the woman picked you have to get married in 6 months or else you will have bad luck and won't get married for 6 years. Koreans are superstitious about many many things.

Food time! We were all super excited about the buffet because we were absolutely starving at this point. So after taking a million pictures we were shuffled outside to walk a few blocks to another building. This building was a giant dining hall where we would be eating. We entered the building and proceeded down the escalator to the 'dining hall'. Wow. I had never seen anything like it. It was a giant cafeteria hall crowded with hundreds of Koreans all fighting for seats and food in the buffet lines. Basically this is typical of Korean weddings. All of the weddings during the day gather in this dining hall and eat the buffet food. It was delicious food, don't get me wrong, just once again no intimate feeling or anything. I felt like we were just sheep in the herd and we were just moving through, eating, and heading out. After we had almost finished eating we spotted the bride and groom. They had changed into normal clothes and were wandering around trying to find people from their wedding. It was almost comical, because the place was just packed of people. We finished eating and that was that. Back on the bus, back to our town. Done and done. Happily Married :)

The beautiful Mia.  She had her guitar, because she had to go sing at another Korean wedding later that day. 

Foreigner co-workers.  Andy, Kelly, Courtney and Emily :)

This was an area set up before the wedding.  The bride and groom were taking pictures with everyone.  So the bride and groom had already seen each other before the wedding ceremony... :(

The mothers of the bride and groom were dressed in traditional Hanbok which is the traditional Korean dress.  It's always brightly colored and looks slightly uncomfortable.

This was the wedding program handed out to everyone.  Couldn't read any of it, but it looked nice.



The row of Ajammas....aka fierce older Korean women with high perms, fur coats, and sharp elbows for pushing you out of the way.



Inside the wedding hall. The priest.

The beautiful bride Denise walking down the isle!

Here they are reading their 'vows'.

Here they are standing and watching as the singer sings their 'first dance' song.

Here is the singer.  Slightly awkward to have everyone just standing and staring at you.

Many pictures with family, friends, etc. were taken after the ceremony.

This was the only picture I got of the 'dining hall' aka cafeteria.  The food was pretty delicious though!