The Korean Wedding Ceremony Both bride and groom wear the traditional hanbok, a traditional Korean dress specially designed for the ceremony. The hanbok represents thousands of years of tradition and is usually made of a lightweight material with bright colors, simple lines, and no pockets.
For a traditional Korean wedding, the bride and groom will wear specific colors. The bride will typically wear red, and the groom will wear blue to symbolize the Confucian idea of yin and yang. A yin color (blue) is meant to bring healing and relaxation, and a yang color (red) provides enthusiasm and active energy.
Unlike Western norms of marriage proposals, the act of “proposing” for most Koreans is more like a celebration or reaffirmation of their union -- a formality as both parties involved have already agreed upon the wedding.
The average age of first-time marriage was 31.1 years for women and 33.4 years for men, as of 2021. Compared to the average age of first-time marriage in 1991, 30 years ago -- 24.8 for women and 27.9 for men – women and men now wait 6.3 years and 5.5 years, respectively.
Chug ui-geum. Wondering what to give the couple on their wedding day? You probably won't need to check a registry for a Korean wedding, as the most common gift is an envelope of money (chug ui-geum).
That's why most families will pay for their share of the wedding costs. That means most brides and grooms in Korea will not pay for the wedding themselves, but their families (parents) will. Korean parents see marrying off their children as their very last duty as a parent. Goodbye, so long, fare thee well young child.
The Korean Wedding Ceremony
The bride will wear a pink or purple hanbok, while the groom's mother wears a blue hanbok. Female members of the family may also wear the hanbok, but they may choose more modern clothing in place of the traditional dress. A celebrant and a Master of Ceremonies officiate at the ceremony.
In South Korea, living together outside marriage is now more accepted, with the approval rate up to 65% from 46% a decade before, while only 35% agree an unmarried couple can have a child, according to the latest government surveys.
A ring on the ring finger is a sign of love and commitment. A ring on your index finger represents friendship. Many older couples don't wear wedding bands and it is usually the younger couples who choose to wear couple, engagement, or wedding rings. Diamonds were not traditionally used in Korean jewellery.
Korea's multicultural children see wide age gap between parents. In four out of 10 internationally married couples in Korea, the husbands are at least 10 years older than their wives.
“Pair rings are worn to 'share' a couple's energy with each other,” Aya Kudo, a Japanese teacher who lives in Korea, told the Korea JoongAng Daily. “However, they are usually worn on the right ring finger, since the left is intended for wedding rings.
As a rule, it's best to dress simply and conservatively, and there is no taboo of wearing dark colours such as black or grey to weddings in Korea.
Traditionally, Korean would-be-grooms proposed to their sweethearts by sending a letter — to her parents. For modern-day Koreans, the norm is generally that the couple come to a mutual agreement to be wed.
In traditional Korean culture, like many traditional cultures, marriage between a man and a woman were decided by the bride and groom's elders. As in Confucian values family and the customs of a family is placed above all. Marriage is considered the most important passage in one's life.
Even couples who marry for love often ask their parents to arrange the marriage to observe traditional good form. Arranged marriages continue to be popular because young men and women in Korea find casual socializing awkward and often feel they lack the experience to choose their own partners.
The bride dons a red hanbok, while the groom wears blue—together, the two colors, like the circle at the center of the Korean flag, represent the balance of complementary entities. Traditionally, the marriage would occur at dusk, representing the balance between light and dark as well.
Korean names consist of two parts: a family name and a given name. Traditionally, a child takes their father's surname like in many other cultures, but Korean women do not take their husband's surname after marriage.
Most people never use their middle finger when pointing; it is used only as an obscene gesture. Some Koreans unknowingly use their middle finger to point at a menu, press buttons on the elevator, scroll on their smartphone, or adjust their glasses.
Wearing a ring on different fingers has different meanings in South Korea. A couple ring is traditionally worn on the ring finger. Whether it's on the right or left hand doesn't matter. A ring on the ring finger is a sign of love and commitment.
Marriage and children are more closely linked in South Korea than nearly anywhere else, with just 2.5 percent of children born outside of marriage in 2020, compared with an OECD average of more than 40 percent. For nearly 20 years, the Korean government has tried to encourage more marriages and more babies.
You may be familiar with the “three-day rule” popular in Western cultures. However, that rule does not apply when dating in Korea. In fact, it may be taken as a sign of disinterest if you don't contact someone immediately after the first date and let them know you had a good time.
But arranged marriages omit such critical periods required for any marriage." More than 85 percent of Koreans marrying spouses from the seven countries walk the aisle through arranged marriages.
For people who aren't Korean to learn about and wear hanbok out of respect via invitation, is a form of appreciation and cultural exchange. To wear it for Halloween and music festivals or altering it to suit western standards and ideals, but calling it by the same name, is appropriation.
A hanbok's colour was chosen with the help of feng shui, an oriental philosophy of harmony. But the chosen colours also represented the wearer's social status, age as well as marital status.
In general, Korean weddings are over quickly and aren't - to my European sensitivities - very festive. The dress code for guests could best be described as business or business-casual, partly stemming from the fact that a large part of the guests is comprised of co-workers.