A Korean Style Wedding

Today I had the pleasure of going to a wedding with one of my Korean friends. It was a very interesting experience, to say the least. The bride and groom wear a normal western tux and wedding dress in the beginning of the ceremony, that starts with bowing to the future in-laws, who are dressed in traditional Korean outfits, called hanbok, which the members of the immediate family, and the bride and groom after the vows also wear.
Upon walking in the door I was stared at so much I’m surprised the bride didn’t come over and slap me for stealing her thunder, but needless to say, I was the only foreigner there.
After the bowing, and the vow exchange the best men have to do some sort of show, which usually involves one of them singing a song. At this wedding, that is what happened, but afterwards the rest of the grooms friends stood in the aisle and took of their suit jackets showing that some of them were wearing sequined jackets underneath. They then did a hilarious choreographed dance, which was awesome. After that, the groom had to perform a strength test. He picked up his future mother in law, and had to do as many squats while holding her that he could. I think he passed.

The oddest part was how loud it was, and as the wedding vows were being exchanged everyone in the audience was chatting with their neighbors and not really paying attention, a strong dichotomy from the weddings I’m used to.

Afterwards, we ate. The wedding as held in a huge “wedding building” where there is at least 20 weddings going on at one time. After our specific wedding we walked down to the basement in which there is a sort of cafeteria buffet. The guests of all weddings go down and eat… It was kind of like being in a food court of very well dressed people. It was very nice sitting with a large amount of Koreans that were very amused at my small command of the Korean language, and clapped when I said I was full in Korean. They also marveled at my use of chopsticks.

All in all, it was a very interesting day and I’m glad that I got the oppurtunity to go and meet my friends family, who all invited me to their houses, which I can only imagine how that will go… as none of them speak English, but oh well.

and now.pictures.