Wedding rehearsal / Courtesy of David Tizzard

I attended my first Korean wedding in the winter of 2005, trudging through the snow in an ill-fitting suit to an unfamiliar venue. I wasn’t heading to a church. The invitation said that it was a "wedding hall." My only instructions were to bring cash. I wasn’t quite sure what for but I had a bunch of green 10,000s tucked in my jacket pocket. The 50,000s didn’t exist yet. Having grown up in the U.K., I was used to churches, drunk bridesmaids, discos, uncles smoking cigars and very late nights. I was about to experience something very different.

As I made my way up the elevator, I saw a sea of people dressed in dark suits and ties. I walked over and was greeted by a smiling old lady in a "hanbok" (Korean traditional clothing). I wrote my name in a book and was about to hand over the money I had prepared but then someone shouted my name. A co-worker had seen me walk in the wrong direction and was frantically waving at me from the other side of room. I was at the wrong wedding. There was more than one wedding? And people sometimes attend two or three weddings a day?

Wedding halls

All Korean weddings are slightly different but many of them will follow a similar pattern. Before the ceremony begins, people loiter in a lobby, greeting each other. The women grab each others’ hands and shake them up and down as they let forth high-pitched shouts of “Unnie,” or some such. The men stand back, hands clasped either in front or behind of them, occasionally bowing to people. The bride sits in a room and people run in for photos, sitting their children on the lap and crowding around for the best shot. The clever people make their way into the hall early to get a seat.

The actual wedding ceremony itself often only lasts about 30 minutes. First, the mothers will walk down the aisle in hanboks and then light a candle at the front of the room. These are often the only hanboks you will see. It’s somewhat ironic that the eldest women are asked to wear something so traditionally Korean while everyone else wears Western clothes. The groom will then make his entrance to whoops and cheers. He........

© The Korea Times