Rachel's Wedding

This morning, Jessica and I attended the wedding of our former work colleague, "Rachel teacher." It was my first experience of a wedding in Korea and gave me an excuse to wear my suit, an opportunity to sample a wide variety of food at the reception buffet, and, of course, watch a friend begin her new life. I get the sense that if one stays here long enough, one ends up going to at least one wedding, if not several. Every foreigner teacher I know has been invited to one of their workmates' weddings. These are far from the traditional Korean weddings of yore, which I am told are day long events that take months of preparations. The more popular option nowadays is to have your wedding in one of the many wedding halls in any given Korean city. A wedding hall is a building of several stories, each floor with several rooms for individual wedding ceremonies and receptions. Rachel's wedding was held in the "Diamond Room" at the Munsu wedding hall, beneath the Munsu Soccer Stadium. Several things struck me as memorable about the ceremony. As the guests were arriving, the bride sat in a room separate from the room where she would be married, posing for photos, while the groom and the families greeted the guests at the door. Here is Jessica posing with Rachel:














The first part of the ceremony involved the mothers of the bride and groom, dressed in the hanbok (as many of the other married female guests were), lighting candles on either side of the altar at the front of the room. Then, the groom entered, walking down the aisle under two crossed swords raised by employees of the wedding hall, who were dressed in what looked like American university marching band outfits. A bubble machine shot bubbles into the air as a fog machine poured fake fog over the stairs in front of the altar. The bride followed, escorted by her father. The man performing the wedding (I'm not sure what his title is, and since I don't think there was anything particularly religious about ceremony it seems wrong to call him a priest) made a statement, presumably whatever the official words are that make a marriage legally binding. All the while, another wedding hall employee was constantly rearranging Rachel's dress so that it looked perfect, to which Rachel paid no attention. The bride and groom exhanged neither vows nor rings, and they did not kiss when the marriage was over (public displays of affection are very rare in Korea). After bowing to each set of parents (groom's first, then bride's), the couple walked hand and hand back down the aisle as streamers were shot over their heads:














Then, it was time for the official wedding photos. First, just the bride and groom, then the entire extended family, then the friends and colleagues, and finally a very staged "throwing of the bouquet." Afterwards, all the assembled headed to the reception hall, named the "Versailles Room," for the buffet. Rachel and her new husband arrived shortly thereafter, having changed out of their wedding outfits, and we gave them our wedding gifts: money in an envelope (nobody actually gives a "real" present). The whole affair took about thirty minutes. I think what was most different about this wedding from weddings I've been to in the States was how impersonal and "cookie cutter" it all seemed. Of course, some of that feeling has to do with the fact that I don't understand Korean (and therefore didn't understand anything that was said during the ceremony) and didn't know any of the guests besides Jessica, our fellow teachers, Mr. Park (the hagwon director) and a few students from Elite that Rachel invited. But besides that, it seemed as if everything was done according to the established program of this particular wedding hall; nothing reflected the personalities of the people involved. In addition, there was another wedding going on next door in the "Ruby Room" simultaneously, and we had to vacate the ceremony room quickly so that the wedding scheduled after Rachel's could begin. Rush 'em in, rush 'em out. In no way do I mean to suggest that it was any less meaningful for the bride and groom or any less beautiful a ceremony than weddings I am more familiar with, but it certainly wasn't my style. At any rate, I wish Rachel the best and thank her for allowing me to be part of her wedding day.