It's the wedding day! Our family and uncle's are gathered at the breakfast table. My sister sits at a separate table with Dad. It's a special meal for her-- the last meal she shares with us as a member of our family.

My sister eats out of 방짜 /bang jja/, traditional brass container. Korean breakfast is not different from other meals, which means it's not any simpler. Korean meals consist of a bowl of rice, soup, and various little dishes called 반찬 /ban chan/. Most young Korean brides nowadays give up this type of full Korean breakfast and instead feed their husbands western-style breakfast such as bread and cereals, which is a staple pet peeve of mother-in-laws. Heck, I don't cook this kind of elaborate meals even for dinner!

The sign in front of the wedding hall. Of the six names here (bride, groom and their parents) there are 4 Lee's and 2 Han's. Can you guess who's which? Hint: Married Korean women keep their last names.

Nami gets ready for her big performance. She was told to show up 4 hours before the wedding. And boy they took up the entire time getting her set... While she's getting ready, I was also getting a make-over by (lower-ranked) professionals in the salon, the result of which you will soon see below...

My maternal grandparents. Grandpa is the only surviving grandparent that I have. His family was a nobility (양반 /yang ban/) and a landlord in the northern part of Korea before the war; he and his family, including my then 5-year-old Mom, fled the communist persecution to the south, finally settling down in Pusan. He greatly misses his homeland, and wishes to be buried there.
But all in all, as my mother says, he has led a full and happy life, greatly revered in the clan and producing a legion of offsprings, including 6 daughters and one son, 16 grand children, 10 and still counting great-grand children.

Our "little aunt", the youngest of the 3 paternal aunts. She never married, and is perpetually worried that we'd also end up unmarried like her, by the fault of her own. Now she'll sleep at least 50% better at night. Don't worry little aunt, whatever happens is not your fault!

Finally I get a chance to be in a picture with Nami. Please don't pay too much attention to the crazy up-do. And the extreme make-over, which is not very noticeable from this far thank god. I suspect that the secret point of the whole makeover of the bride's sis is to keep her from outshining the real star of the event, i.e. the bride. Fabulous.

A sneak peak at the wedding hall. Whoa.

I capture a photographer capturing moments of pre-wedding anticipation and excitement...

The soon-to-be-newly-weds, with their moments of life ahead.

A framed pre-wedding studio shoot is on display at the hall entrance.

A close-up of the picture. Lots of people gasped at how pretty she looked. Happiness beats finest cosmetics! But wait, Mr. Lee, I think that is a girl's bike, what with the basket and flowers and all...

Now almost the wedding hour, my dad stands before the hall entrance, preparing to greet massive influx of guests...

Mom and Dad, greeting arriving guests. There were 500 seats in the hall, and the wedding hall people had to arrange emergency seating in another room for those who couldn't find seats. Gee, I didn't know my parents knew so many people... I got scolded by my mom for running around with my camera, instead of staying put and play an elegant lady. (But she changed her mind later, after seeing this marvelous wedding page!)

My sister sill in the waiting room. With my cousin Joon and his beautiful wife Sylvie, who live in Bruxelles, Belgium. Joon started the trend of marrying out of order, by marrying this highschool sweetheart of his last year when he was only 24, making life harder for his big sister-cousins...

My sister looks a bit tired and maybe excited with anticipation. I examine today's shots on my camera...

The wedding ceremony is about to begin. Guests hurry in to be seated...

The ceremony has begun. Dad walks my sister down the isle, while Mr. Lee calmly yet eagerly awaits at the end to take my sister's hand. Solemn music! Stage effects! Bubbles!! Lighting effects!! Camera flashes going off all over! What a moment...

While the couple quietly listens to the wedding presider (Mr. Soo Jung Lee, my father's colleague and an old friend from his medical school)'s speech, my parents are deeply seated in their chairs, watching them. I think I glimpse a shade of melancholiness in their turned backs (well mostly the backs of the chairs anyway).

What a hi-tech wedding hall! Complete with giant projection screens on either sied of the wedding platform, for those with poor visions and/or without opera glasses. And of course, you get to see the faces of the bride and the groom! Otherwise people would have been forced to content themselves with staring at the couple's magnificently veiled and sparrow-tailed back sides...

Indeed, guests are watching intently. My cousin-in-law Sylvie and my aunt/her mother-in-law. On the far corner of the righthand side is my octogenarian maternal grandfather.

The wedding presider is now finished with his speech, which unlike too many Korean wedding speeches was quite concise, to the point and heartily delivered. Both families and guests were very impressed with it. The couple in highlight faces to the side to get ready to walk down the isle, while dry-ice fog rises from the platform in a dream-like manner...

Now to show some excitement! The crowd applauds and cheers on, while the couple walks the isle to the up-beat tune of good-old wedding march. Again, bubbles rise out of nowhere...

And they walk away! Crackers fire up... Guest cheers even louder... This concludes part 1 of the ceremony. The bride and groom now withdraw to the waiting room to change into their cocktail dresses, their grand attires for the part 2 of the ceremony.

During the intermission, childhood photos are flashing by on the giant screens for the guests' adoration/amusement. Mr. Lee, circa... 1980 maybe?? Like the shirt, like the shirt.

And this would be... my sister nami in a baby form. This must be her first-birthday photo. She was a very happy and friendly baby, laughing and smiling easily. My first-birthday photo, on the other hand (not shown here)... let me just say that my serious side was quite obvious from the early stages of my life.

Finally, food is served! It was a nice western-style dinner, featuring juicy sirloin steak with mushroom sauce, salad and other vegetables. No vegetarian options though. We Koreans don't understand herbivores... No meals without meat will be considered a treat!

And part 2 of ceremony begins. My sister is wearing a peach-colored cocktail dress, which I and my mother helped picking out (translation: decided for her). But really, this dress was a definite standout among the dozens. The couple marches on, stopping intermittently to light candles along the isle and bow to the guests who are sitting nearby.

The couple lighting a candle, holding the torch together. There must be some kind of symbolic meaning in this. A nice touch, I and my mother thought.

On the stage, they pour a bottle of champagne down a tower of delicately stacked glasses. Again, highlight! Applause! Novel lighting effects! Not that this champagne is for drinking...

The bride and the groom, now changed back to their wedding dress/tuxedo, pause with the parents-in-laws for a picture. After this, groups after groups of people lined up for pictures, in such variety of categories as: wedding-presider and bride/groom, friends of bride/groom, colleagues of bride/groom (mostly doctors... heaps of them), and family and relatives of bride/groom (which I got to be in).

For every successful event, there is a tough organizing force hard at work behind the scene. Here are some of my maternal relatives who kindly volunteered to help out with various managerial tasks; keeping wedding guestbook/registry, collecting 부조 /bu jo/ from guests (donations for the wedding), guarding, uh, the bag full of donations, accounting and so forth. From left to right: Jinho, my cousin and son of aunt number 3; my uncle who was finally born as the heir to the family after 6 daughters; my cousin Sungkyun's wife; my aunt, my cousin Sungkyun who's the son of aunt number 2.

Now the official ceremony is over and the guests have left; but there is yet another and final part, which is only open to family members. 폐백 /phye baek/ is a Korean traditional style wedding ritual, which is meant to be an introduction of the new couple into their families. Here the bride and the groom change into their Korean traditional wedding costumes. Again, blue is the color for the groom, and red is the color of the bride. I think Mr. Lee was caught off guard to find my nosy camera in the changing room, so he inadvertently reacted by flashing a V sign. Yes you are right Mr. Lee, you scored a victory today!

In 폐백 /phye back/ room. A group of elders sit on one end, and the bride and the groom salute them with a Korean style kneeling bow. The elders in turn reply with congratulatory remarks, words of blessings, and envelopes full of money (to be shown below...). There are many, many more groups of elders that the couple need to greet.

In the meantime, my aunts and other relatives sit in a waiting room, waiting for their turn to 폐백 /phye back/. It's a perfect time for exchanging gossips, opinions and information!! Gee, how did the young ones meet? Oh is that really?? How marvelous... How happy the parents must be...

Finished with greeting all elders, the couple now sits behind the table. The two families, the bride's and the groom's, now sit on opposite sides of the room and introduce each other. Standing on the right is the groom's father, bowing to my family.

The bride and groom take of their wedding robes. My sister's 한복 /han bok/ should look familiar, if you've been paying attention... It's the Korean traditional dress for the bride, which came in 함 /ha-m/ the first day of this journal.

Envelopes that they received from elders! With blessings written on the outside, and bills inside. And what about those chestnuts and dried plums? I missed the grand scenes, but apparently the elders throw these fruits/nuts onto bride's skirt so she'd catch them with her open skirt, a gesture of wishing the couple fertility. Hmm. Nuts? Fruits? We Koreans always have had very subtle ways with symbolics...

Leaving the newly-weds to their honeymoon, my paternal relatives gather back at my parents' house. The women gather around the kitchen table...

The men occupy the livingroom, many of them half-unconscious...

And oh my. Aren't they the cutest little girls ever!! They just have to be related. And they are. But maybe without even being related little korean girls can look this alike when young. Anyhoo, they are cousins twice-removed. I think this is the correct term... They are daughters of my cousins. While their mothers are chattering away sitting at the kitchen table, I caught them playing hide-and-seek under it...

My cousins' kids all assembled in a room. My cousin Joon (married but without children as of yet-- his legs showing on the left) decided that he should run a miniature daycare so adults can have their moments of peace after a hard day of wedding. A nice job, cousin. You have it good with kids! I'll bet your wife Sylvie noticed. :-)