Korean wedding

I went to a friend's wedding this weekend to have my first real Korean wedding experience. I attended a wedding a few years ago, but it was in a church with people wandering around and chatting on their cell phones the entire time.


This wedding was different because it was at a wedding hall. This particular hall had 4 floors, each with a wedding going on. There is a small room to the side of the chapel (can't think of a better word for it) where the bride to be sits and people hop in to take her picture. When I went to visit the bride there seemed to be 50 women in the back snapping away with their camera phones. The bride looked beautiful!


Outside of the chapel is a large portrait that all Koreans have displayed at a wedding. The couples photo was really nice. One thing I do not understand is why they (and by they I mean all Koreans) leave the protective cardboard on the corners of the frame. I went to home of one teacher who had been married for 20 years and they still had the cardboard on the frame, which was proudly displayed on the livingroom wall. I will talk more about Koreans refusal to remove protective coverings from things in a later post.


The chapel itself was small but intimate and looked very nice. As the wedding started a couple girls in drum major outfits came out with swords. I was hoping that this was some holdover from the bachelor party and things were going to get interesting, but alas, they didn't fight or strip. It turns out that the girl sitting next to me used to be a wedding drum major for weddings as a summer job.


I thought that the man talking for 90% of the wedding was a chaplain, but it was actually just a friend of the groom's father, which is tradition. It can also be a former professor or other such role model. I have no idea what was being said, but I am sure it was good.

not the actual wedding, but you get the idea (watch it till at least the 3 minute mark, gets interesting!)

The ceremony lasted 18 minutes. After that people posed for pictures with the happy couple and the bouquet toss was held. My "date" caught it, though she was the only one allowed in the bouquet catching zone. Maybe they felt bad for her because she is getting old (29) and needs to marry soon (yes, she reads this).

blurred for artistic purposes, not due to shoddy photographer

Following the ceremony a few of us traveled upstairs to the buffet room. This is a shared room where all guests of all the weddings go and chow down. It was quiet a battle to get food with old women pushing and shoving everywhere. I stuffed myself with sushi and calamari.

If this is how old Korean women are at the wedding, you can only imagine how hardcore they are for bits of pineapple and chopped hotdogs

Everyone insisted I be shorter than the bride for this pic [the girl in the back, who goes by the name drama, is staring at my butt.

After the wedding festivities I went out with some Koreans to a nice little cafe that didn't seem at all like Korea and then to the apartment of some friends. It is always nice to see how the natives live in their home environment. This apartment was very modern and very nice. They even had TWO(!!!!!!) kimchi refrigerators!

kimchi refrigerator