A Korean Wedding

Last weekend I went to a Korean wedding. Kristen, one of the teachers at my school, was getting married. Now she has to move to Seoul where her husband's job has been transfered and become a housewife. She's not too keen on that.


The wedding was largely like a Western wedding, with a few obvious differences. The first thing I noticed was that people didn't bring gifts. I brought a gift, which was a surprise to Kristen, but everyone else was dropping off envelopes with money at the sign-in desk. Just like in the Godfather, but with no pillow cases. There was also no guest book to sign, and seemingly no souvenirs at all for the bride and groom, save the clothes and the rings.

My favorite difference was that Kristen entered the wedding hall to the Star Wars Theme. I got really excited for a second, but they only played about 30 seconds of it, so I couldn't get my video camera out in time to prove it was really happening.



There were also these sword chicks involved with the ceremony. They were dressed in little red uniforms and the bride and groom walked under their swords. Heather says that's not traditional--it's just the way this wedding hall operates. Usually the swords are part of military weddings.


The whole atmosphere was much less solemn and serious than at Western weddings. It was actually treated more like a show than a ceremony. There was actually an emcee at the front of the room, announcing over the speakers what was going on through every step of the wedding (I assume that's what he was saying, anyway). The guests were pretty casual, too. Although everyone was dressed to the nines, not all of them chose to sit down, but instead stood up at the back of the room and talked the whole time. I felt the steady din was quite rude, but I guess that's what they do here.


After they were married, there was a quiz, which I thought was pretty cool. Wasn't there some newlywed gameshow that tested couples' knowledge of each other? Maybe that's where they got the idea. They had big cards with answers gotten prior to the wedding, and they had to answer the questions. Actually, I think it may have been only Kristen who had to answer the questions. I don't recall ever hearing her husband speak. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention...

Here is the wedding hall with the groom at the front, talking to one of the sword chicks:

These flower towers are an obligatory fixture at Korean weddings and other events. I see them all the time:

Here is Leon and I with Kristen before the ceremony. I read about a Korean superstition that if a bride smiles at the wedding, the first child is supposed to be a girl. I was curious to see if she put any stock in it, but I guess not.

Here are Kristen, some kid, and her primper:

This is the beginning of the ceremony, when the sword chicks escort the mothers to the altar to light candles:

The bride's procession with her father:

This is when the bride and groom first meet and bow to each other:





These are from the ring ceremony:

I took this from the back row, so my focus is off from the zooming, but here are Kristen and her husband after they were pronounced married:

Here is the cake cutting ceremony. I don't know what happens to the cake, because we sure as hell didn't get to eat it. Heather said only the top part of the cake is real. I did notice that some people were tipping the table at a 45 degree angle with the cake still on it before the ceremony began.

Here they are walking back up the aisle after everything was over, and that was the last we saw of them.

Korean weddings don't have a reception like ours do. They generally include a buffet for the guests, but the bride and groom leave for their honeymoon, or for home, immediately after the wedding. The wedding hall had a restaurant a floor above, where the buffet was served. Some people ate, some people went home. The only traditionally required food at a wedding, I've read, is noodle soup. There is a saying which goes, "When are we going to eat noodles?" It's a way of asking when someone is going to get married.

I think it's ironic that there's no reception after, and the whole ceremony seemed kind of isolated, with people just talking amongst themselves and not necessarily paying attention to the wedding. It seems antithetical to the whole community/family-oriented culture.