Lisa: A Korean Wedding

My school director's wedding was November 22 and all of us foreign teachers were invited.  I'm a pretty big fan of cultural events, so I was really excited to go, with Jon going as my date.  It was a cultural eye-opener, but probably not in the way you are thinking.

The wedding was held in the Gangnam district of Seoul on 

Saturday evening at 5pm.  For any of you that have experienced rush-hour travel in a city of over 10 million can guess, getting there was a huuuuge pain.  We left around 3 the metro from Suji which was quite hot and crowded.  After about an hour, we arrived at Gangnam station and proceeded to find the shuttle bus that would take us to the venue.  It then took us another 50 minutes to go less than a mile.  We travelled in comfort though, as you can see.  This is my friend/co-worker, Phillip, crammed into a very small space.

Koreans usually have two ceremonies, a Western style ceremony and a Korea ceremony.  The western ceremony is the one we were able to go see as it isn't exactly an intimate affair.  First of all, it was on the 6th floor of one of the huge shopping centers.  It certainly had something of a Vegas feel to it.  We walked in and were warmly welcomed by the wedding party all dressed in their traditional Hanbok.  The bride and groom were in Western style clothing, however.  Sadly, I don't have any pictures of this as I forgot I had my camera.  The bride was sitting in a sort of throne room where everyone could go in and look at her before the ceremony.

The ceremony itself lasted about 30 minutes and apparently this is extremely long by Korean standards.  Overall, the style was similar to ours, with some readings, a sermon of sorts, and a hymn.  But of course, this was all in Korean so it was pretty difficult to get much out of it.  What was really strange for us Westerners to understand, however, was how noisy it was.  In the states, the bride and groom would have walked into the congregation and punched people if it were this loud.  Laughing, talking, talking and/or texting on cell phones...but apparently it isn't a big deal here in Korea.  The ceremony went on as planned.

I think one of the strangest things was that this room had big tvs up so that people in the back could see, even though the room was pretty small.  The bride and groom also spoke their vows in to microphones, I guess so that they could be heard over the crowd.  They also read their vows, or what I think were their vows, from a book.  The only other notable cultural difference is that when they were finished they went and stood in front of each of their parents and both gave very deep bows, with Mr. Lee (my director) kneeling with his forehead on the ground to show respect.  It was a really enjoyable affair, excepting the fact that a) we could not hear and b) even if we could hear, we wouldn't have understood anything.

After the ceremony, most guests went to eat dinner at what was basically a reception without the dancing and boozing.  There certainly was alcohol provided at every table, but it was nothing of the all-night affairs that we are used to.  People pretty much ate their fill and then left.  While we were eating dinner, at least for a little while, there was also a traditional Korean wedding ceremony, however this remains a bit of a mystery since it is only for family.

Here is a picture of Jon and some of my co-workers at the wedding.  Left to right is Matt, Jon, Phillip, and Long.