One of my co-teachers got married last Saturday. It was my first Korean wedding. My co-teacher is the bride.
There were A LOT of people there--more than they actually knew, I'm certain. I had to stand. The center aisle is clear plastic with flower pedals underneath.
The bride and groom basically stand there for 20 minutes while the minister talks. There's not a lot of congregation participation. Otherwise the format follows a Western Christian wedding.
Clever concept: You have to pay to eat. The ceremony itself is only 30 minutes or so, but if you want to eat you need to put money into a white envelope (any amount you choose) to either the bride's table (left) or the groom's (right). The money helps defray the costs of the wedding and you give this in lieu of a wedding present.
The "chapel" was small and part of a larger wedding hall complex. In Korea, weddings are very, for lack of a better term, "industrialized." There are several weddings a day. You get set up, take pictures with people, have the ceremony, then spend private time with family (including dressing the the traditional hanbok). After that you go home. There are no hours-long receptions like in the West.
Bonus: I took some videos of me walking along Korean streets just to give you a taste of daily life.
This is the market near my house featured in the first video.
Flatscreens everywhere, even in the subway!
Free Hangul (Korean writing) lesson:
"Jukjeon" is the name of this subway station. There are 2 syllabic blocs:
--죽: "Juk" or "Jook"
--전: "Jeon" or "Juhn"
죽: ㅈ, ㄱ are the consonants; ㅜ is the vowel
--ㅈ=j , ㄱ=k/g (in this case a 'k') , ㅜ="oo" (short 'u')
전: ㅈ, ㄴ are the consonants ㅓ is the vowel
--again, ㅈ=j , ㄴ=n , ㅓ="eo" or "uh"
Put it all together, and you get 죽전, "jukjeon", which means "bamboo field".
very informative, thanks! enjoyed all the videos!
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