One of my students had a wedding today. I went with my wife and another of the teaching staff that shares the class to attend. It was across the street from where my parent’s stayed while they were in Daejeon. We met up with the other teacher, showed up early enough to chat with the groom, and gave our envelopes to him.
Sadly, his mother saw the cash so he had to “add it to the book”. We didn’t actually slip the money into the hands of the intended target, as he will only get a share of the cash after everything is paid for now. We got our meal tickets and headed inside the buffet to wait for the wedding to begin. Since we went to eat before the wedding was started, we had lots to choose from, unlike our own wedding.
When the wedding was set to start, we left the restaurant and showed up in the wedding hall to watch the proceedings. Like our own wedding, they had under booked the seats, so we had to stand for the ceremony. I didn’t mind being at the back, but the people that were near us were really rude. It’s clear they showed up for the cheap buffet and not to watch the wedding. They were talking on phones, letting their children run around, and talking. The sound system in the hall wasn’t that loud, so we had to strain to hear the announcers over the guests.
We had an opera singer at our wedding, and the man didn’t even need a microphone to be the loudest person in the room when he was singing. The people this couple chose sang very well, but they were hard to hear with all the rabble around. A second song done by some teenagers was so good it got people clapping, and some drunk person right next to me started shouting, “Encore! Encore!” Uh, shouldn’t a wedding be about the people getting married be about the couple, and not some kids singing? Did he want the people to get married again? This is the danger of letting people have access to unlimited bottles of alcohol before your wedding.
nyway, as a return favor for catching the corsage at my wedding and being in my pictures, I was ‘the foreign guy’ , in his pictures. The other teacher left after the ceremony ended, so I was the only non-Korean in all of the pictures. My wife chatted with another student from the same class that had shown up for the wedding.
The bride had the same problems my wife did trying to toss a good bouquet. She tossed it to the wrong person 3 times. It’s rigged as to who is supposed to catch it, but that didn’t stop the wrong person from grabbing it out of the air. Why they didn’t just make her stand by herself confused me. It’s the small things like this that no one prepares for.
The meal, wedding, and pictures all were accomplished in ninety minutes, which was fantastic. We got to everything and still get out at a reasonable time. I’m sure the wedding party had hours of preparation and work still to do. Now all that is left is to pack for China and catch an early bus tomorrow to the airport.
