The 24th was Jamie, one of the Korean teacher's, wedding. We were all invited, and Jamie asked us to sing a song (it's tradition for the bride's friends to sing at the ceremony). We chose "My Girl," and though it's pretty bad, (especially since we had to cut out some of our wicked dance moves due to spacing constraints), Jamie seemed to enjoy it, and that's all that matters!
The wedding itself was like nothing I have ever experienced before. The building itself was reminiscent of a factory; as we walked in the door two ladies wearing headsets directed us to an escalator which brought us to a floor that we could hardly step on to, as there were so many people. There were no less than four couples waiting to get married and so each had an exact time at which they were to go to the little wedding rooms with their guests. Our bride's time was 1:50pm. Before the ceremony, the bride and her party went to one of the two photo booths across from the wedding rooms, where endless pictures and videos were taken.
The Wedding Factory
Group picture in the photo booth
When the ceremony began, strobe lights lit the room, and a spotlight fell on each person (parents, then groom, then bride), as they walked up the aisle. When the couple reached the altar, smoke began pouring from a smoke machine located in the steps below the altar. I think our mouths were all on the floor at this point. After a fifteen minute speech from the marrier(?) Jamie was officially married, and it was time for us to perform our song
(VIDEO TO BE POSTED ASAP)
What happened next can only be described as a well-orchestrated series of photo ops. First, the couple walked from the altar and went to bow to each of their parents. But before this happened, a very sour woman dressed all in black with way too much makeup ran out, fussed and fidgeted with sashes, veils, gloves and makeup, then the photographer directed the shot to perfection, snapped no less than six photos, and they were on to the next "moment". "Walk to the cake, pick up the knife, pose, straighten outfits, fix makeup, snap, snap, snap! Next!" From cake to champagne to group pictures. And that was it, the ceremony was finished.
Jamie and her father
A very long train
Notice the smoke coming the altar and the woman arranging Jamie's dress
A beautiful moment, bowing to Jesse's parents
Bowing to Jamie's parents
Cutting the cake
Slightly dazed and confused, we pushed through the hordes of people to the next escalator, which brought us to the first reception area. This floor was not ours, so we continued to the next escalator, up to the 4th floor. The reception area had about 20 long tables of 12, surrounding a long buffet. All of the guests from all of the weddings that were going on during that hour sat together in this room, and everyone had to have a ticket given to them by the couple in order to enter. We English Villagers (9 foreigners and 6 Koreans) sat down to eat, and as we ate we noticed that most of the other guests were gone. Koreans don't usually linger when they've finished eating, but surely they would wait for the bride and groom to come up to eat with them? Nope. By the time Jamie and her husband came up, there were only 4 or so tables remaining, and the caterers had cleared almost everything.
Jamie was glowing throughout the entire event though, and I hope to hear that she's had a fabulous honeymoon in the Philippines this past week!
The reception room
Ricky and I
The Bride, Groom and I, in traditional Korean costumes
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