A Korean Wedding

On Sunday, December 21st we had the honor of going to the wedding of one of our students. Matthew and I have both had her in our religion classes. Her English name is Gloria, and she is a very sweet and beautiful person.

We met her husband for the first time at the wedding, but were very impressed by his kindess and the love he has for Gloria.

There were some very unique and different things at this wedding, and apparently most Korean weddings.

When we got there we were ushered to a room where Gloria was sitting on a chair and having her picture taken with friends. We all got to take a picture with her and then were taken out to wait for the other wedding to finish. Apparently every hour, on the hour, a new wedding would start. So while we waited we watched the other wedding (people we didn't know) finish up and file out.

Also, while we waited we give our "wedding gifts". Here, you give money. You give to the groom's side or the bride's side, depending on who you came for. And then at the end, apparently the bride and groom's parents split all the money. It is to help cover the expenses for the wedding.

Here in Korea, they also take "glamour shots" before the wedding in lots of different outfits and take fabulous pictures! Then they display some of those pictures outside before the wedding.

This isn't very clear, but isn't it a great picture?!

This is once we got into the hall to sit down.

This is the bridal processional. Bride's mother (pink), groom's mother (green)--then boy and girl -- then groom -- then bride and father.

As you can see behind the mothers there are a lot of people. This is where the people for the next wedding wait. The problem is that they aren't exactly quiet. They talk and joke as loud as they want. I found it disruptive, but no one thought anything of it. Even the guests at the wedding were talking amongst themselves during the ceremony.

Aren't they cute?! Both held a little bouquet of flowers. They held hand and walked down the aisle.

During the wedding Gloria's groom sang her a surprise song. Apparently this is very rare. She was really touched and cried. This is just the end of the song. Plus you can hear all the noise in the background.

Cutting of the cake...with a SWORD!

After pictures with their families. Then we got to be in a picture with all the guests. One side had guys and one had girls. Then they tossed the bouquet, but it was different because the girl was already chosen to catch the flowers.

Then we went downstairs and gave our tickets (that we got when we gave money for the bride's side) and ate at the buffet. It was...interesting food. Mostly meat. Even whole baby octopus. mmmm. This is our "couple" picture with our matching "couple" scarves made for us by Cleo, our coordinator.

On the way home Matthew's head hit the ceiling of the bus. Mostly buses are okay, but this one was an older bus.

It was a great experience for us to go to Gloria's wedding and we pray that she and her husband will have a happy and blessed marriage.