One of my students from January got married today and she invited me to her wedding. I am so happy that I got to see her get married. Jenna is a beautiful person, inside and out. After her honeymoon she will move with her husband Jin to Cairns in Australia so she is heading to my neck of the woods. I will be disappointed to see her leave Korea as she is such a lovely person but I will be happy to see her in Australia when I return. I'll have to visit her in Cairns and she can visit me in Sydney.
Today I was tossing up whether I should go to the wedding by myself. I almost talked myself out of going because I was nervous to go alone. But I am glad I didn't.
The wedding was held at the Imperial Convention Centre in Centrum City, right across the street from the largest department store; Shinsaegae. The wedding was being held on the 13th floor and there were masses of people lining up for the elevator and the lifts were not stopping to pick people up. With the way it was going I thought I'd miss the wedding, so in killer heels and a tight dress I walked up 13 flights of stairs instead of waiting for the lift. Other guests had also chosen to take the stairs rather than wait and I am proud to say that I made it, and did so by actually overtaking many young men on the stairs who struggled to walk up 13 flights. Considering I was wearing a constricting dress and high heels, I think that's an amazing achievement (although I have to say the last 10 stairs nearly killed me)!
When I arrived at the reception hall it was interesting to see that it was completely different to Western style weddings. It is a wedding hall for many couples. There were two main rooms for the actual ceremony that you could look into. Popping my head into both rooms I saw that neither were Jenna's wedding. In fact, the couple gets married in about 20 minutes, take photos with guests for about 10 minutes and then vacate the hall for the next couple to get married. Because the other couples were getting married, the couples that are waiting to get married have an area where they can sit and pose for photos with guests before the wedding. Here are some photos of me with the bride and groom. They both looked wonderful.
It was quite an interesting experience being there and I was a bit embarrassed to have drawn so much attention. 1. I was the only non-Korean there, 2. I am taller than most Koreans but adding the 12cm heels and I was towering over them, and 3. I was wearing a dress like I would to a wedding in Australia, only to find out that here it is much more casual (some people were wearing jeans!).
After taking the photos before the wedding I put the gift money in an envelope and gave it to the people in charge of receiving the money and in turn they gave me a voucher to eat at the buffet reception room. There is no normal wedding reception here in Korea where the guests eat, dance and drink to celebrate the new couple. Instead, after the wedding the guests from all different weddings go to a buffet/restaurant and are given a seat on a shared table where you could be sitting with people from a different wedding. I was lucky to have met a wonderful woman called Sunny who is a friend of Jenna's so we ate together and have plans to meet up in the next few weeks. I love meeting new people and seem to be doing so all the time!
Anyway, back to the wedding, the groom walks down the aisle and waits for the bride to be escorted down after him by her father. The celebrant talks (I don't quite know what he says) and then someone sings to them and finally the groom sings to the bride. They pay their respects to their parents by bowing to them and there is the traditional cutting of the cake. The couple then walk back down the aisle and then return to the podium where they take photos with the guests. The whole ceremony, including photos takes about 30 minutes. After that people head to the buffet.
Love the moves!
Some interesting things I noticed about the weddings here that I didn't like:
1. Some people just come for the food. They walk in, hand over the gift money, receive the food voucher and go straight to eat, not even sticking around to watch the couple get married.
2. While the ceremony is on, people are seated at tables and at the table in front of me there were a whole bunch of ahjummas - they did not stop talking the entire time and not once did they look at the bride and groom. Then they got up before the end of the ceremony and went to lunch.
But the thing I LOVED was when the groom sang to the bride. In this case Jin was not shy and he even danced for Jenna. It was adorable. I definitely want my future husband to do that at my wedding!
It was absolutely beautiful!
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