After I told Seonghye about my interest in Korean celebrations, she was kind enough to put together a power point (attached) and spend part of one of our lessons teaching us about Korean wedding traditions! It was very fun. My favorite part was the video she used that captured several of the rituals in action. Most Korean couples today perform two celebrations, one western and one traditional.
Before the wedding, the bride and grooms family exchange gifts. These gifts are often incredibly expensive (up to $10,000) and are usually skipped by the couples. Traditionally, the bride gives a gift called yedan for becoming part of the family. She would put together items such as comforters, clothes, and makeup for the grooms parents and siblings and sometimes cousins. Between the reception of yedan and the wedding, the groom would put together what's called 'ham' which would be a box of letters from the father-in-law to the bride. Today, this is usually replaced by expensive makeup and jewelry gifts that reflect the bride's fashion.
The wedding takes place in an entire building with multiple floors all dedicated to the celebration. One for the ceremony, one for the food, one for the reception and usually underground parking. Despite all of these sections, a typical Korean wedding only lasts about 2 hours. There are no speeches by the maid of honor or best man, there is also no dancing. Another major difference between Korean and Western weddings is that guests give money as a gift instead of items to help equip the newly weds for their future life together. The parents usually take this money to pay for the wedding.
During the wedding ceremony, there is a lot of very formal bowing. Both sets of parents bow to each other and the couple bows to each set of parents during the wedding and in rituals at the reception. One of the rituals is pyebaek which is a family only reception during which the parents of the bride and groom toss dates and chestnuts to the couple as they try to catch them in the brides wedding skirt. The number of each represents how many children they will have later on.
Comments
These wedding ceremonial ritual practices reminds me of a traditional Southern Chinese wedding. There are a lot of bowing involved as well, to all kinds of relatives from both sides of the family, with the transfer of gifts such as money or jewelries to both the groom and bride.