My kindergarten co-teacher, Hena got married in January, and as one does in Korea, invited all the entire workplace with nice card invitations that she placed at each of our desks a month prior to the ceremony. It was to take place a wedding hall about an hour's commute to the East of the city. Many of the foreign teachers were going, as it was our first opportunity to see a Korean wedding first hand. Our boss and most of the other Korean kindergarten teachers also came.
The wedding hall is an enormous facility. The building where the weddings takes place has tall ceilings, and is decorated lavishly, in the way five star hotels are. When you enter, you check in with the front so you can get your meal ticket, and sign the register if you wish. The hall was noisy and filled with people, both from our wedding and other weddings going on simultaneously.
We found Hena in the Bride's room, taking pictures with her soon-to-be hubby, family, and friends. She was very excited to see us, and asked us to wait so we could take photos as well.
While waiting, I got ambushed by an old relative of one of either the bride or groom, who spoke a little too loudly and closely, but seemed very nice. He wanted to know where I was from, and upon learning I was American, wanted to know if I would show him around the States when he comes to visit. After a few minutes, to divert his attention, I found things to take pictures of, like this poster of Hena and her fiancé.
After we did our photos and video well wishes, the Korean teachers left us to go eat. Naturally us foreigners were shocked that they were skipping the ceremony and going to eat, and planned to leave after. They laughed and explained to us that this is accepted behavior, that everyone does this, and that Korean weddings are really boring anyways. What is more important, is the money donation we had given earlier, and making an appearance like we did while Hena was getting her photos taken.
Us foreign teachers stayed behind and found seats in the wedding wall, which was slowly filling up.
(FYI: that is not a real wedding cake, just a prop... you bet I was disappointed!)
Inside our wedding hall, it was chilly, and nobody had taken off their coats. The crowd was mostly older people. We stood up when the bride walked down the aisle to the familiar music, accompanied not only be her groom but a support team or two camera men, two women responsible for keeping her dress perfectly arranged throughout the ceremony and a man with an ear piece who seemed like an overseer or sorts.
I enjoyed referring to this guy as wedding secret service man. I'm surprised he didn't confiscate my camera after I took this shot.
There was some music played at certain intervals, at first I was wondering if they were personal friends of the bride and groom, but I'm inclined to think that they were rather employees of the wedding hall.
There was some intense preaching. The minister spoke loudly, and we were sitting very close to a pair of speakers that weren't very kind on the ears, but I suppose most of the members of the audience were of an age that required the volume to be a little too high.
As with all traditional Koran ceremonies, there was bowing to the elders...
Then, as soon as the ceremony is over, and we did pictures (which all of us foreigners were included in) and a scripted bouquet toss (I don't even want to get married right now, so I don't know I was bummed out about that, I guess I'm just competitive like that). After this, the pride and groom were hurried out to change clothes for traditional wedding clothes and ushered upstairs into a traditional wedding room, for the traditional ceremony, much appreciated by the elders. Since the room and doorway to it were small, I didn't stay, but snapped a few photos before going to redeem my meal ticket.
The food is in a separate building on the wedding hall 'campus' and is run very much like a cafeteria. There were different sections for wedding parties, but no assigned seating, they just sat you as you arrived.
Tables were pre-furnished with food and drink, with some soup and the warm plates brought out after you sat down. After eating, it was time to go, but we stayed late enough to see my coworker come into the food hall and wish her a happy honey moon (they were going to Hawaii!)
