Yesterday, my co-worker Connie got married. Instead of getting gifts, Koreans give money for weddings. As co-workers we are required to give money whether or not we go, but we are also somewhat required to go.
I was excited to go anyway, seeing a Korean wedding was actually something I came here hoping to attend. Connie looked gorgeous. Her dress was lovely and MASSIVE. We arrived and took a co-workers picture with her on this massive couch thing in a room with carpets and shiny beads and fancy lighting.
We then hung out in the reception hall area for a while before sitting in the bride section of the weddingy area. Lets talk about the weddingy area for a second. It was a long room with black walls. There were small lights in the walls that did a twinkling star sort of a thing. There were also flowy flowery light up pattern things, and mirrored stands with purple flowers on them. Down the center isle was more or less a glass case runway. Inside the runway were more lights and glass/mirror flowers. There were also what I thought of as wedding stewardesses whose job it was to direct guests, and help members of the wedding who were either older, respected, or wearing heels to high to move around by themselves.
I have been told (and now seen for myself) that the success of a wedding is determined by how many people show up. I have also been told that there are like four degrees of separation between the actual people getting married and some of the people who show up. Like families of business friends friends sort of thing. Because of this, there was constant talking throughout the entire ceremony. A guy sitting three rows ahead of us was on facebook on his phone for about half the vows.
The ceremony began with the mothers of the bride and groom coming to the front and lighting candles. They were wearing hanboks, which are traditional Korean dresses. They are super beautiful and it was cool to see them as part of the ceremony.
The fathers came in and sat down, and then the groom, followed by Connie in her glorious huge dress. There was some sort of pre-ambley speech thing, and then vows.
This is when things started to become interesting and incredibly foreign. A man (I assume a friend of the bride or grooms) sang them a song. He had a gorgeous voice. The catch? He was reading the lyrics of the song off his cell phone as he was singing.
Next, a big tray with a wedding cake on it was rolled out. And the couple cut the cake. WITH A FREAKING SWORD. Then four women (friends of the brides) did a choreographed dance to K-pop. Like, Brittney Spears type choreography. Everyone loved it! Our co-worker Sue was in it, and she told me today it took them six weeks to learn.
They started a dance to another song, this time with pom-poms, and the groom jumped out and danced with them. He had clearly learned it without Connie knowing, she was surprised and cracking up, that was pretty adorable.
This is all happening while people are talking.
After the ceremony was over we were told we had to be in a picture, so we waited while family members were in pictures, and got arranged and re-arranged for 10 minutes before the photographer snapped some shots.
I think I have mentioned before that the documentation of events is as, or more important than the event itself. Even during the ceremony a friend of Connie's would jump up to the alter where they were standing to fix her hair, or bring her crying tissue, or arrange her dress perfectly.
It was a really interesting cultural experience. I had a blast seeing how it all went. The space was amazing and very fancy, and it was definitely totally different from what I was expecting.
Afterwards there was a big buffet, which was great. Our new coworker came with us, and we got to know her and spent the rest of the day with her and our other foreign co-workers. (All great people).
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