Love in the Tower

The picture over there on the left is a picture of the night before. Jae clowning around before we she headed off to her parent's house for the hand-off of the dowry. I include it only to demonstrate how completely relaxes Jae seemed even as "The Hideous Event" grew inexorably closer.

The morning began with a hangover after the ceremony the night before - Essentially an organized extortion affair in which I was the extorter. I had some pictures of this taken by another photographer and I hope to get them up here in the next couple of days. In any case, it required us to drink until about one-thirty in the morning and we were all hungover and tired. I felt particularly sorry for Ed, who had to drink with everyone and then get up and go through the whole pre-wedding process. Jae, at least, as a woman, is allowed to avoid much of the drinking.

We went off to get something to eat for breakfast and although I was shaking in fear (and nauseau) that we were going to end up eating something like Haie jan Gook (coagulated blood soup) we ended up in a soup kitchen of an entirely different kind which featured rice and beef, both of which I can more or less deal with. This soup takes three days to make, and is simmered in enormous freaking pots that are always on the boil. That thing to the right would be one of these pots.. you really can't tell, but that pot is about four feet across. I'm not sure why Korean cities don't burn down regularly.. all of the resauraunts have open flames, many of them feature cooking at the table, and the buildings are piled on each other in bugger-all fashion. And it's not like everything is nailed down completely tight. As we sat in a barbeque joint after the wedding we heard a tremendous grinding and crash and as we sat watching a table of older women was sent scattering by the ceiling-mounted fan which disintegrated directly above them. The proprietor came sprinting out of the back, pulled the power cord from the wall, and the ladies all returned to the table as if this were the most normal thing in the world. And I suppose it can't be too out of place since everyone took it quite calmly and not on threat of a lawsuit spoiled anyone's dinner.

The wedding was grand, as weddings should be. And blessedly brief. We were in the wedding hall for two hours before the ceremony which was then accomplshed with alacrity.. maybe 20 minutes tops, and out. Everything went smoothly, the bride glowed, the groom beamed, and all the parents seemed happy with things. The wedding takes place in a building whose sole function is to hold weddings. The wedding is a package deal.. you get the makeup, the clothing, the photographer, the food, everything in one convenient bill. And because it's a business, the weddings are short, shovel-em-in and shovel-em-out affairs. The pre-wedding ceremonies are longest because they include a "showing" of the bride and the passing of the envelopes. The showing is basically a photo op for all the guests. The envelope passing is a social thing... each guest arrives, greets the families in an orgy of bowing and hand-shaking, and goes to the check in table. Here they hand off an envelope with money for the happy couple, sign in, and pick up their meal-tickets for after. That's a weird event and I'll get to it, but for now.. some pics of the wedding with occasional comment.

Ed and Jae in the makeup room -- both veeeery pretty in pink! And calm.

Eddie "burn em if you got em" Park relaxes like Bogart, pre-ceremony.

Ed makes a bit of pre-wedding money serving in the valet-parking corps.

The happy couple

Ed dances the Hokey-Pokey to demonstrate how his "shaking it all about' won Jae's heart.

The lovely bride in western fashion

The lovely bride in Korean Fashion

The lovely mother of the lovely bride

The lovely brother of the lovely bride (Jong-guin)

Ed joins the masons.

Tea for two -- Ed and Jae sit in a room and receive each member of the groom's family. More envelopes are passed over and the relatives each say a word of wisdom or two, while being served by the bride and groom. It is only the groom's family, because traditionally the bride is seen as "lost" from her family - her name is lined-out of the family book of genealogy. In a nice touch Jae's family took an additional family photo after the wedding and invited Ed to be in it. They were making it clear that they weren't losing touch with Jae and that Ed was part of their family as well.

Nice --- I have tons of pics and will post them all when I return to Seoul tomorrow. Each part of this ceremony deserves a bit more posting, so I'll try to get to that as well.