Wedding Day!

Hello friends across the globe!

This entry is actually about an event we went to quite some time ago but never got a chance to talk about. A wedding! One of Jamie's co-workers got married about a month ago and she invited us to her wedding. (it turns out that it's customary to invite EVERYONE you work with but as we were curious and had gotten the invite we went-so much for stressing over the guest list)

Anyway, I'd like to start by saying that, like weddings in the states, weddings in Korea are varied and different. However, the way this wedding was held is a common way to get married in Korea. The ceremony, of course, varies across couples.

OK! So. the wedding. right. The wedding was in a wedding hall. These huge buildings and corporations created to house all your wedding needs. We arrived and checked in at the brides reception desk where we signed the guest book and dropped off our gift. The hall is beautiful, by the way and there were many families milling around and sitting about. Near the reception desk there seemed to be the mothers and fathers of the bride and groom posing for pictures. The bride was sitting in a seperate room posing for photographs and greeting her guests. She was sitting on a little stage with her dress fluffed out around her and with lace and pretty things all hanging behind her. It reminded me of getting your picture taken with a princess at disney world. Anyway, it was real cute. Her fiance is a great photographer so they also had this running slide show of all the pictures of the two of them together.

Anyway, after this we went into the wedding room. It looked like a beautiful function room. it had an aisle running down the center and tables on either side. there were gorgeous white flowers, candles, fake trees. it was lovely. We watched the ceremony, but it was so informal. people were talking the whole time, getting up, moving about, changing seats. It was fascinating. Anyway, i'll detail more about their specific ceremony later. But from what i gather you pick a person close to you to officiate the ceremony. I'm not 100% clear but i don't think it needs to be a specific person or title who does it. I remember mr lee (remember him, from a few entries back) saying that he has officiated some of his students weddings. ANYWAY. So after the ceremony, in that same room they took all the family photos. At the end, they asked anyone who wanted a picture with the bride and groom to come up for a group photo. It was so cute! there were about 150 people all crowed around them for the photo. Anyway, after all that it was time to eat.

The dining room was downstairs in the same building. They had two massive rooms that each held about 200 people for guests. We were not in the same room as the bride and groom but they had a huge screen the projected them for us to see. They did much of the same customs I'm used to: cake cutting, toasting (although the best man toast was during the ceremony), walking around from table to table to say hello. Anyway, most interesting thing was that if you had come for the wedding and couldn't find room upstairs, you could have sat in the dining hall, eaten dinner and watched the whole ceremony on the big screen. In fact, many people did that and by the time the bride and groom made it downstairs, they had already left to go home! Anyway, as soon as we finished eating we left-no dancing or anything. the whole event was very short. (food was delicious!)

Oh, and through the whole thing there were the women in blue suits and white gloves moving and positioning all the wedding participants. Each person seemed to have one. My favorite was when they brought the bride and groom to each table and told everyone to clap for them. In all actuality, it seemed very smart. so much happend that day, it's nice to have someone to tell you where you stand and who to wave at. Also, through the whole thing, ceremony to reception there were points where it would seem they would just stop and pose for photos. The photographs will be amazing but the photographers made it hard to watch the proceedings.

OK. so now the specifics of their wedding that were really adorable or interesting. the only people that walked down the aisle at the beginning were the parents and the bride and groom. Bride walked down with her father. Mothers walked down together. I'm not certain when the grooms father got down there, but the parents had their own special seats on the specific sides and bride and groom when to each said and said something (didn't' understand) and gave gifts. My favorite thing was when all the groomsmen walked down the aisle, gave a red rose to the groom and then hugged the bride. Then afterward the groom gave her the roses. It was real cute. Oh. and they had live singers and music. It was real sweet.


Ok. that's enough for their wedding. let me know if you want more details. We forgot the camera so we have no pictures, sorry.


Exciting things about Korea (we'll stick with a theme today):

Korean women don't change their names when they get married.

Koreans often live at home with their parents until they get married. (While this is changing slightly, we haven't met any single koreans who do not still live with their parents. GREAT way to save money.)

The wedding hall website: http://seoulweddingcenter.com/
It's all in korean but it scrolls through the pictures when you open the site.