…to put myself through planning not one but TWO weddings!
Yikes!
But anyway, when J and I were was thinking about what kind of wedding we’d I’d like we I thought that it would be perfect to have a Traditional Korean wedding here in SK.
Little ol’ me thought that hey, we’re in Korea, having a traditional Korean wedding shouldn’t be that big of a hassle to put together.
WRONG!
Turns out that most places here don’t do traditional Korean weddings anymore because a) most brides want to wear the fairtytale white wedding gown and b) Wedding halls and factory-style weddings seems to be the craze around here.
This is what a typical wedding in Korea would look like these days:
First, there’s the “western style” ceremony held in the wedding hall ceremony room. It’s all decorated like a typical disney type wedding complete with lace and trimmings and (in some cases) trumpets, swords and even spotlights when the couples are introduced and are making their way down the aisle.
They have chairs on either sides of the aisles for family members and guests but usually the ceremony room is so small compared to the churches or wedding venues we have back home that guests here can be usually found standing at the back of the room, chatting, mingling, talking on their mobiles etc. Hardly anyone except for the bride and groom’s immediate family are actually paying attention to the ceremony itself (which only usually lasts about 15 minutes. Tops).
Here, the bride and groom don’t even exchange wedding vows. Since the ceremony isn’t actually recognised as legally binding in Korean marriage laws, the person officiating is usally not someone with any kind of legal authority to marry that person. So for 15 minutes (or however short the ceremony is) this officiant talks and talks and talks while the bride and groom stand there awkwardly in front of him. Then suddenly the officiant asks them a question, they both scream out ‘Ne’ meaning yes in Korean and a few minutes later, they’re bowing to their parents and the whole party (bride, groom, and both sets of parents) walk over to one side of the room where the cake is sitting, and cut it with some kind of sword-looking knife.
I was horrified to find out, while attending one of these things, that in some cases the cake isn’t really a wedding cake but just a small birthday cake you can buy from the local bakery story, which they then placed on top of FAKE wedding cake tiers to make it look as though the bride and groom were cutting part of a large cake!
While most wedding halls are usually situated within the grounds of a local hotel, there are some, more fancier halls that cater just for these korean/western weddings. Such as the one pictured below.
When J took me to attend his cousin’s wedding in Pohang and we drove into this tacky looking castle-type building, my mouth went slack. Why, why, why would anyone want to get married in a building that looks like a b-rated version of disneyland?
So I told J, on no uncertain terms, that if we had to have a wedding in Korea, then I absolutely refused to have this kind of wedding.
Which is why we’re now looking at places that hold the Traditional Korean wedding.
And if you’re wondering about the ceremony, it kinda looks something like this:
