Lifetime presents...a Korean wedding.

Pearl's wedding at the Kensington Stars Hotel

Several months back, Pearl (one of the Korean teachers at AP) was gracious enough to invite us to her wedding. She is actually an American citizen (her family lives in California) but her fiance is from the Sokcho area. She started teaching part-time at AP back in February, but has recently (well, about a month ago) resigned. But we have hung out with her (and her now husband) on several occasions (in the noraebang, going out for barbeque or gamjatang, etc.), and they are very sweet.
Well, we hadn't seen Pearl for awhile and we weren't sure if the invitation was still on. I don't believe Koreans send out individual wedding invitations as Westerners do. We weren't sure if the invitation was a polite business formality, or if Koreans just do it the word-of-mouth way. But Pearl showed up at AP on Friday with an official invitation for the AP staff, so we knew it was going to happen.
Now, there is a traditional Korean wedding ceremony, where the couple wears hanboks and go through the old cultural marriage gestures. You can read about that here. This was not a traditional Korean wedding--it was a modern Western wedding, though it wasn't like most I'd been to.
The wedding took place today (Sunday) at 1:30, at the Kensington Stars Hotel. Many Koreans get married in hotels, I'm told. The Kensington is a luxury hotel at the foot of Seoraksan National Park. It's a very beautiful location, and a very expensive hotel. We'd been there once before for the Saturday night buffet with our directors' family.
It was a terribly rainy day today, but since the wedding was completely indoors it wasn't a problem. The cherry blossom trees lined the road almost all the way up to the hotel, which made for a pleasurable bus ride there. They are in full bloom right now and are just gorgeous. We got to the hotel early and waited for Kirsty and Helen.
We greeted Pearl's fiance downstairs. He was very excited to have reached the big day and glad that we had come. We left our card and gift at the table (Koreans typically give envelopes of money to the bride and groom, and there were two men jotting down the amounts given by each guest in a large book) The four of us (the only Westerners attending) sat down at a table near the back. The reception room (where the wedding was held) was very beautifully decorated, with potted roses lining the aisles and topiary trees on each table. She'd told us around 500 people would be present. Since most of Pearl's family lives in the U.S., I believe that most of them were probably his friends and family.
After everyone was seated, her fiance walked down the aisle, followed by Pearl on her father-in-law's arm. No bridal party, no ring bearer or flower girl. When they reached the front, the officiant began to speak (we presume about love and life together, though we aren't sure, because it was all in Korean). At one point Pearl and her fiance approached each set of parents and bowed to them deeply (we think this was a gesture of gratitude). They also bowed to their guests. At the conclusion, they cut the cake (which was just for show...it was never actually served :( Then, they sped down the aisle again as folks threw streamers at them.
At that point, all of the ajumas (older women) had already made a beeline for the buffet table. It was crazy to see how quickly folks were getting in line for food. The ceremony itself had only lasted about 20 minutes, and it didn't seem like everyone was paying attention since we were all seated at reception tables and people were socializing during the wedding. Pearl and her fiance were already back up at the front having their pictures taken.
But we joyfully got in line and filled our plates. The Kensington has very good food--this spread had many different Korean dishes--bulgogi, kimchi, egg rolls, different noodle dishes, gimbap, many types of sushi, rolls, fresh fruit, pumpkin porridge. It was quite tasty. We even got to be in some of the pictures with the bride and groom, as the photographer hurried us over to join in the "friends" photos.
The funniest part of the wedding was how quickly people left after they'd finished eating. At Western weddings, people linger around to catch up with those they haven't seen in a while, they joke and chat, sometimes make new friends. These guests ate and left. I don't think most of them stayed longer than 45 minutes for the whole affair. I kinda felt bad for Pearl, but she and her husband didn't stick around too long either after the pictures were done (who could blame them...they were headed for the Philippines!). Paul, Kirsty, Helen and I were the last ones to leave the place. We were having so much fun talking and finishing up the beer others had left behind :)
Pearl was a beautiful bride though and we were glad to have experienced a Korean wedding in Sokcho.