Gyeolhon Shik

This evening we went to the wedding of one of my students, who moved back to Korea a few years ago. Coincidentally her wedding was scheduled during the time that Erma and I are here. We didn't know about it until just a few weeks ago.

The wedding was held in the 63 Building, which is named for the number of floors. When it was built in 1985, it was the tallest building in Asia. It's got the obligatory observation deck on the top floor, and an IMAX movie theater and aquarium. It's a fancy place and they do a lot of wedding banquets as well.

Even though the standard Korean wedding today is, in its general outlines, of Western style, there were still a number of differences between this wedding and a typical American wedding.

In Korea the most common wedding gift is cash. When we arrived at the banquet room, the area outside was festooned with large wreaths from which hung banners on which were written felicitous expressions in Chinese characters. There were two desks, each manned by two people. One desk had a sign with the groom's name on it, and one with the bride's. At the appropriate desk I handed over my cash-filled gift envelope, and signed the guestbook. (Because cash can so easily get separated from envelopes, it is common practice to write on the gift card the amount given.)

While the men were in Western dress, nearly all in dark suits, quite a few women were wearing hanbok 한복, the colorful traditional Korean dress. (There's a picture of a girl wearing a hanbok near the end of the Chuseok post.)

The wedding started at precisely the scheduled time; since we arrived a few minutes late, we ended up standing in the back of the hall while the bride and groom processed to the front. The bride was in a white wedding dress with a hoop skirt, no train, and a very long veil that trailed on the floor behind her. One woman seemed to have the job of making sure the dress looked perfect for photos; every 30 seconds or so during the ceremony she ran up to the bride and tugged emphatically at various parts of the dress. (It was often unclear to me what effect was achieved by all this tugging.) After they made their vows, the newlyweds received some instruction (occasionally humorous) from the officiant on how to have a successful marriage. Erma hypothesizes that the officiant was probably an advising professor or work supervisor of the groom or bride.

[Picture added December 20, 2007.]
At American weddings it is typical for the newlyweds to pose with members of the wedding party and with close relatives for formal pictures. Pictures of guests are generally candids, taken at the dinner tables and during after-dinner dancing. Here, however, the formal photos included one set with all relatives who were present, and one set with all other guests who were present. For each of these, the subjects of the photos were lined up four deep on risers.

[Picture added December 20, 2007. I'm the white guy with closed eyes.]
The disadvantage of the way we do things is that inevitably some guest at the wedding ends up not being in any of the pictures, or has only an elbow, ear, or toe visible. I know that Erma would have liked to have these giant group photos taken at our own wedding.

The bouquet was thrown right after the picture-taking with friends, with all of us still arrayed on the risers behind the bride. Unlike in America, the bouquet toss is not an opportunity for the single women present to compete to either run toward or away from the arcing flowers. One woman is designated in advance as the bouquet recipient. (She actually caught the bouquet twice, since the photographer didn't like the shot he got the first time.)

[Picture added December 20, 2007.]

Probably because the building didn't have a dining hall large enough for all the guests, we were divided into two groups, with relatives eating in one room and friends in another. As far as I could tell, Erma and I were the only two foreigners present among several hundred guests.

The food was Western: squash soup, steak, chocolate cake. But we were also served a small bowl of noodle soup, which is a Korean tradition. A friend of the bride, sitting next to us, said that the Korean expression "When are you going to serve us noodles?" means "When are you going to get married?".

After the main ceremony and dinner, the bride and groom performed a traditional pyebaek 폐백 ceremony. I've seen this once before at a wedding in America, and it's pretty interesting. For this the bride and groom dress in traditional costume and engage in a number of ceremonial acts of symbolic significance. At today's wedding, though, the pyebaek was held in a small private room for just a few relatives. I was able to go in while they were setting up and wish my student and her new husband well. Both had changed into clothes similar to those pictured here.

And that was it! The whole thing lasted about two hours. There was no music, dancing, or general merriment, like we have at home, but all the guests had a good time and enjoyed seeing the bride and groom start off on their new life together.

It was a special pleasure for me to see my student again. I had not seen her for several years, and it was wonderful to be present at such a joyful moment in her life.